Rethinking de facto autonomy? A multi-policy area approach and the regulatory policy processPalabras Clave(sic)(sic)(sic)

Abstract

We examine de facto autonomy across regulatory agencies and policy sectors. Yet not much is known whether, how and why de facto autonomy could vary across policy areas within the same policy sector. This article demonstrates the existence of such variation and suggests that this variation depends on the interplay between stakeholders' diverging (or overlapping) policy preferences, deficient (or superior) organizational policy capacity, and institutional arrangements leading to enabled (or constrained) de facto autonomy. Relying on elite interviews and secondary resources, this study builds on an illustrative study on bank regulation in Turkey in the post-GFC period and presents a nuanced understanding of de facto autonomy: a multi-policy area approach to de facto autonomy that allows us to examine variation in de facto autonomy across policy areas, the determinants of the variation, and whether de facto autonomy is constrained or enabled, which structures the regulatory policy process.