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.

Key words
Public policies; Federalism; Concurrent powers; Member-state; 1988 Constitution