FEDERAL COORDINATION OF PUBLIC POLICIES: the national systems of regulated policies

Abstract

The 1988 Constitution brought numerous
innovations on public policies. One of them was
the definition of a range of competences shared
between the three spheres of government. Of
these competences, some depend on the voluntary
adherence of the states. This is the case of the
policies here called regulated. The article analyzes
why states adhere to these systems, what are the
incentives for adherence and cooperation, and what
are the federal government’s induction instruments
for policy enforcement. The article presents
theoretical and empirical contributions. The first
is based on theories that emphasize the role of
rules, incentives and design for the implementation
of policies in federal countries. The empirical is
the collection of data on the functioning of these
systems – public security, culture, tourism and
housing, in the period 1996-2014 through a data
base of more than 30,000 occurences. The article
concludes that despite the regulatory activism
of the federal government, the adherence of the
states is conditioned by their capacities and that
the systems’ obstacles have not been the object of a
systematic evaluation.