In recent decades, a process of global spread of independent regulatory agencies has occurred. These have been adopted by a large number of states in order to implement regulatory policies in a large number of sectors. These agencies are particularly characterised by their organisational identity, seperated from the classic administrative structures, as well as by their specialisation in monitoring, supervising and promoting regulation. If, before the 1980s, regulatory agencies around the world were limited to a few sectors –especially the financial sphere– and some countries, like the USA, the great spread that has occurred in recent years has taken this model to a large number of countries, and to sectors where the aim of regulation is controlling human, social and environmental risks, beyond simply supervising markets.

This project intends to analyse the reasons for this significant spread of regulatory agencies, and why it occurred in such a short time. The project proposes the creation of a database covering regulatory agencies for a wide range of sectors, including all countries in the world with more than a million inhabitants. Identifying the institutional and organisational characteristics of each regulatory agency, the main variations that exist within this kind of public institution will also be analysed. This will involve studying how the process of institutional transfer between countries and between sectors occurs in the context of the global spread of regulatory agencies.