Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Prado, Mariana Mota --- "Assessing the theory of presidential dominance: empirical evidence of the relationship between the executive branch and regulatory agencies in Brazil" [2017] ELECD 1092; in Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter; Emerson, Blake (eds), "Comparative Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 181

Book Title: Comparative Administrative Law

Editor(s): Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter; Emerson, Blake

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784718657

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Assessing the theory of presidential dominance: empirical evidence of the relationship between the executive branch and regulatory agencies in Brazil

Author(s): Prado, Mariana Mota

Number of pages: 17

Abstract/Description:

In my earlier contribution to this volume (Prado 2010), I argued for a ‘theory of presidential dominance’ to describe the interaction between the government and the regulatory agencies in Brazil. This theory stands in contrast to the ‘theory of congressional dominance,’ which is used by some American scholars to describe the relationship between independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) and the government in the United States. This chapter builds on this earlier contribution to show that, on the descriptive front, there is now empirical evidence to support my hypothesis of ‘presidential dominance.’ Data shows that presidential interference has increased and the independence of regulatory agencies has fallen over time in Brazil (Silva 2011). The first two parts of this chapter asks how and why this has happened. In the third part of this chapter, I turn to the normative question: who should control regulatory agencies? In answering these descriptive and normative questions, I try to argue that there may be reasons to embrace the idea of ‘varieties of regulatory state.’ In line with Dubash and Morgan (2012), I conclude that although scholarship analyzing ‘the regulatory state’ in the global south may be enriched by theories generated in the global north, it also needs to make a conscious effort to be more grounded in the unique political, legal and social circumstances in which these IRAs operate.