Regional policy capacity for environmental governance: institutional dynamics in Brazil’s subnational context

This paper examines the concept of “regional policy capacity” in multilevel governance. Two questions are addressed: First, what conditions allowed the institutionalization of regional governance in a constitutional order that lacks institutionalized mechanisms of coordination? Second, under which conditions do such governance arrangements build regional policy capacity? The paper draws on qualitative analysis of two critical cases of regional environmental governance in Sao Paulo, Brazil: the Intermunicipal Consortium of the ABC region, and the Piracicaba-Capivari-Jundiaí River Basin Committee (CBH-PCJ). The cases demonstrate that regional governance is a prerequisite for managing subnational problems that cross municipal boundaries. It can be successfully implemented through both bottom-up and top-down initiatives. Under conditions of limited statehood, the effectiveness of these capacities depends on a robust institutional design, binding collective objectives, and the ability to mobilize capacities across different institutional levels for regional problem-solving. The paper advances the concept of regional policy capacity, addressing a gap in the literature and enriching the policy capacity framework for understanding the conditions for effective regional decision-making.