Autonomy or control? The debate regarding Independent Regulatory Agencies

Abstract

Chile is undergoing its third process of institutional reforms in about a century. Similarly than the previous reforms, current ones share an internationalist and technocratic approach. These previous two processes of reforms, however, also have an important difference. Whereas the reforms proposed by the Kemmerer mission during the 1920’s were gradually implemented, the “silent revolution” of the 1980’s was a complement for an accelerated program of privatizations. The agencies created during the kemmererian reforms were progressively moving towards higher standards of formal independence and within a functional system for distributing jurisdiction. On the contrary, the Chicago boys’ reforms established a different regulatory agency for each privatized market. This created an atomized system with lower levels of formal independence. From this perspective, it is important that future increases in the levels of formal Independence are coupled with a rationalization of the agencies’ regulatory jurisdiction and with stronger mechanisms of administrative coordination.