State structures have experienced significant transformation with the spread of globalization. This paper examines how to measure one major change that has occurred in recent decades: the worldwide proliferation of public agencies with regulatory tasks. It remains unclear how their configurations vary across countries and sectors, and what can be learned from these variations. To better identify these agencies worldwide, we introduce a new dataset on the institutional features of 799 agencies in 115 countries and 17 policy sectors. The dataset contains variables from their institutional profiles, covering a broad range of formal characteristics. To examine the diverse faces the regulatory state has adopted along its globalization path in depth, our variables are grouped into four blocs: regulatory responsibilities, managerial autonomy, political independence, and public accountability. As such, we depart from the view that a single dimension does capture the actual diversity of institutional forms regulatory agencies may exhibit. We also use factor and cluster analyses to assess their various forms, and suggest a typology of agency institutional models to facilitate more precise studies on the regulatory state. Results confirm that the regulatory state shows greater variety than usually expected.

Are the board members of regulatory agencies (regulators), taken as a particular cluster within the public sphere, independent of elected politicians and tenured bureaucrats? How can we assess their independence in practice, beyond formal rules? To address these questions, this paper delves into two key dimensions: board members' social connections and their security of tenure in office. Firstly, we focus on regulators' identity as policy adjudicators and examine their political and administrative relations. In doing so, we expect to understand better how regulators' social and political situations may influence their behavior. Secondly, we assess their political vulnerability through political cycles in order to measure their de facto independence over time. Additionally, variations in these two dimensions are compared with respect to the effect of different de jure appointment rules. We contrast these expectations with the empirical evaluation of board members of regulatory agencies in Spain (1979–2010). Thus, we confirm that regulators who have an administrative profile are more vulnerable to political changes than those with political ties, while appointment rules have an influence on their political vulnerability.

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This article discusses how the extension of network governance influences the de facto independence of regulatory agencies. Assuming that agencies gain de facto independence vis-à-vis the government when they experience a substantive increase in their reputation, we argue that agency participation in international governance networks contributes to strengthen agency domestic positions due to organizational learning and the expansion of expert knowledge involved in such interactions. Based on a case study of the Spanish nuclear regulatory agency (Nuclear Safety Council [CSN]), the article highlights how its involvement in international governance networks promoted the agency's de facto independence during the 2000s.

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Regional cooperation has been an enduring feature of Latin American politics for more than half a century. With the turn of the century, regional organizations moved beyond traditional free trade issues to embrace cooperation in broader social policy areas. A recent literature relates this change to the left turn in the region, especially in South America. Yet, in practice, relevant differences persist in terms of how social policy is regulated at the regional level. This article looks precisely into this variation. In essence, it studies regulatory cooperation in the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) and thus offers a comparative assessment of the institutions and policy instruments devised in two social areas: education and health. Using an original dataset on the documents passed by MERCOSUR between 1991 and 2016, the findings provide evidence that the definition of the policy problem matters as this affects the institutional mechanisms and the policy instruments and strategies devised to address them. In this context, different policy problem definitions seem to account for two distinct emerging patterns of social regulatory cooperation in the Southern Cone.

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This article discusses a unique organization in the regulatory world, the Brazilian Association of Regulatory Agencies (ABAR), which brings together federal, state, and municipal regulatory agencies across different policy sectors. The paper argues that as a regulatory policy network, ABAR has been crucial to the professional socialization, capacity building, and institutionalization of regulators in Brazil. Moreover, it has promoted their identity as professionals and differentiated them from politicians, regulatees, and societal actors. Thus, while ABAR raises the shield of expertise to secure independence from political and social interference, it has itself become a relevant actor in the country's regulatory political dynamics, contributing as such to the strengthening of the Brazilian regulatory state.