Original
When the Regulatory State Meets Populism: Regulatory Agencies in Mexico
Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper focuses on two questions: what kind of strategies of de‐institutionalization of the regulatory state have been chosen, and to what extent can they be linked to an explicit ‘populist’ agenda guided by a ‘will of the people’‐ based justification that cuts across different regulatory domains? Applied to the case of Mexico, this article looks at how a populist President (Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO), within one single period in office (from 2018 to 2024), sought to de‐institutionalize regulatory agencies that were said to have been institutionally embedded. Mexico offers an important case for the study of populist leadership. López Obrador has been portrayed as a populist leader because of his repeated claims to be speaking ‘in the name of the people’. However, this particular Presidency has not been associated with the typical ‘right‐wing’ authoritarianism (e.g., Brazil's Bolsonaro). Nevertheless, during his presidential term, regulatory agencies were exposed to a range of pressures, ranging from ‘de‐delegation’, ‘de‐legitimization’, and ‘termination’. This article focuses on eight domains (representing the total universe of domains in which regulatory agencies were prominent). The analysis is based on a variety of sources including documentary analysis of government announcements, media coverage, and statutory changes as well as semi‐structured interviews. Our comparative approach is aimed at exploring general populist policymaking patterns in a national case, while seeking to better understand specific variation across policy sectors, as well as institutional agency designs. This piece adds to the literature on regulatory institutions in an era of populist times by setting ‘de‐delegation’ strategies in the wider theoretical context of institutional de‐legitimization. In particular, it highlights the limited institutional ‘hard‐wiring’ of regulatory arrangements.
中文
当监管型国家遭遇民粹主义：墨西哥的监管机构
摘要
摘要 本文聚焦两个问题：监管型国家的去制度化选择了何种策略？以及，这些策略在多大程度上可以与一种明确的“民粹主义”议程相联系——该议程以“人民意志”为基础的正当性论证为指导，并横跨不同的监管领域？本文以墨西哥为例，考察一位民粹主义总统（安德烈斯·曼努埃尔·洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔，即AMLO）如何在单个任期内（2018年至2024年）试图去制度化那些据称已在制度上根植的监管机构。墨西哥为研究民粹主义领导提供了重要案例。洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔因其反复声称“以人民的名义”发言而被描绘为民粹主义领导人。然而，这一总统任期并未与典型的“右翼”威权主义（如巴西的博索纳罗）相联系。尽管如此，在其总统任期内，监管机构仍面临从“去授权”、“去合法化”到“终止”等一系列压力。本文聚焦八个领域（代表监管机构在其中具有突出地位的全部领域）。分析基于多种来源，包括对政府公告、媒体报道和法定变更的文献分析，以及半结构化访谈。我们的比较方法旨在在一个国家案例中探索一般的民粹主义政策制定模式，同时力求更好地理解跨政策部门以及机构设计的具体差异。本文通过将“去授权”策略置于制度去合法化的更广泛理论语境中，对民粹主义时代的监管制度文献有所贡献。特别地，它凸显了监管安排有限的制度“硬连接”。
关键词
监管型国家、监管机构、民粹主义、去制度化、去授权、去合法化、墨西哥、AMLO