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Regulatory governance in the Brazilian oil sector : passport to the future or passage to the past?

This thesis examines the current Brazilian oil sector's institutional and regulatory governance structure and its impact on four variables: investment, production, technology-innovation and the strategic control of oil. These variables are fundamental for the development of the oil industry and they are mentioned in Brazilian laws as central aspects to be continually developed. A prospective analysis of the 2010 reform in the Brazilian oil regulatory framework is a major part of the thesis because the alterations are relatively recent and have not as yet produced a set of consistent and statistically significant data. The research adopts a multidisciplinary perspective, using the institutional, reflexive and responsive theoretical frameworks and a methodology based on the examination of the legislation, semi-structured interviews and a historical comparative study of international regulatory governance in the oil sector to draw two main conclusions. First, the new Brazilian regulatory framework will have significant drawbacks in three of the four variables: investments, production and technology-innovation, essentially because of its excessively interfering and rigid approach, based on command and control regulations. Second, despite allowing an increasing strategic control over oil in some specific situations, this goal could have been attained in a manner that would have avoided the shortcomings in the other variables. Based on this understanding, the thesis makes recommendations to overcome the identified drawbacks. In line with the responsive and reflexive conceptual frameworks, the proposals consider that regulations in a dynamic and changeable sector as the oil industry should avert intrusiveness and imperative commands. They should rather advocate a versatile and interactive regulatory approach, steering and guiding the different stakeholders to socially desirable outcomes.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:682945
Date January 2015
CreatorsFlorencio, Pedro
PublisherUniversity of Warwick
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/77710/

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