Can Federal Agencies Make Subnational Actors Implement Their Policies?

• In Event: Federalism in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Most women’s policy agencies (WPAs) worldwide are located in the central government and lack implementation capacity. Yet, not having an execution role severely limits the effectiveness of their policy proposals, impinging upon the WPA’s success. Valiente (2007), for instance, argues that when WPAs are not involved in policy implementation, their initiatives could amount to nominal gains. In those cases, policy success in approving new legislation, for example, might not translate into a real improvement in women’s lives, as those policy initiatives might have grave implementation deficits or not be executed at all. Given this potential weakness, ensuring policy implementation becomes a thorny issue for WPAs to address, as the commitment of other actors to their policies is essential for the success of those initiatives. One tool that WPAs may use is to resort to the power of the purse – something that not all of them might have at their disposal. Yet, attracting governors’ and mayors’ attention using federal resources gives rise to an additional challenge – namely, fostering policy compliance. Local authorities can divert resources earmarked for gender policy to other initiatives which are more appealing to them (Franceschet, 2003: 40). This paper examines the case of Brazil’s WPA, known as the SPM (the Secretariat of Public Policies for Women), and shows its valiant efforts to create state and city-level WPAs and to persuade governors and mayors to implement its policies, especially those about combatting gender-based violence. To accomplish those goals, the SPM used ingenious tools of Brazil’s federal pact, which proved essential to overcoming governors’ and mayors’ ability to resist policy implementation.

Author

• Simone R. Bohn, York University