Coordination, uniformity, and autonomy in the formulation and implementation of public policies: The federal experience in Brazil and internationally

Abstract

This article analyzes the challenges in the formulation and implementation of public policies in Brazil and in other federations and highlights the strategies and mechanisms for guaranteeing principles and parameters for national public policies and federalism. The article discusses the adoption of national public policies in the face of the federations’ principal dilemmas: Intergovernmental coordination versus cooperation, uniformity versus diversity, autonomy versus shared authority, and centralization versus decentralization. The article’s guiding question is whether in federal countries the various spheres of government act to veto the adoption of national public policies. I argue that in the Brazilian federation the Constitutional engineering of 1988 was capable of resolving the main federative dilemmas and the possible vetoes to the adoption of national policies. I further argue that the federations are constituted of multiple dimensions that need to be combined and analyzed in order to better understand them.