Diffusion agents and institutional change: The variable influence of independent regulatory agencies across sectors in India

Understanding regulatory cultures: The case of water regulatory reforms in India

“…The last three decades have witnessed a widespread diffusion of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) across the global North and South (Jordana et al 2011;Dubash & Morgan 2013a). Such diffusion processes have been analyzed from the perspective of formal political models and regulatory arrangements (Kayaalp 2012;Kumar 2020), chiefly through the construct of the regulatory State 1 (Majone 1994). There is considerable debate as to whether the Northern and Southern, or neoliberal and developmental States, should be treated as distinct or just a continuum of polymorphic State forms (Levi-Faur 2013).…”

“…Correspondence: Shilpi Srivastava, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton BN19RE, UK. Email: s.srivastava2@ids.ac.uk There has been widespread sectoral diffusion of IRAs across the Indian institutional landscape in the last two decades (Arora 2018;Kapur & Khosla 2019) but this process has been far from uniform, especially across those sectors that categorically fall under the purview of the federal units (see Kumar 2020). For example, between 2005 and 2011, the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority (MWRRA)the focus of this articlehad generated euphoria and skepticism across the country.…”