The Rise of the Regulatory State of the South: Infrastructure and Development in Emerging Economies

Summary

Understanding the regulatory state of the south, and particularly forms of accommodation to political pressures, could stimulate a broader conversation around the role of the regulatory state in both north and south.This volume seeks to provoke such a discussion by empirically exploring the emergence of regulatory agencies of a range of developing countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The cases focus on telecommunications, electricity, and water: sectors that have often been at the frontlines of this transition. The central question for the volume is: Are there distinctive features of the regulatory state of the South, shaped by the political-economic context of the global south in the last two decades? To assist in exploring this question, the volume includes brief commentaries on the case studies from a range of disciplines: development economics, law and regulation, development sociology, and comparative politics. Collectively, the volume seeks to shape the contours of a productive inter-disciplinary conversation on the emergence of a significant empirical phenomenon – the rise of regulatory agencies in the developing world – with implications both for the study of regulation and the study of development.