ABSTRACT In Brazil, legislative control conditions regulatory agencies' rulemaking through substantive limits, procedural requirements, and ex post review. Drawing on legal analysis and documentary evidence, this article maps these mechanisms through a differentiated framework that combines legislative oversight scholarship, historical institutionalism, Marxist state theory, and Marxist Dependency Theory. It argues that, under dependent capitalism, legislative oversight is not merely a technical correction for bureaucratic drift, but a strategic response to a structural “double pressure”: the need to sustain external credibility while managing domestic legitimacy crises. The result is a critical typology that specifies how distinct legislative coalitions activate material, procedural, and ex post controls. Rather than treating Brazil as an isolated case, the article offers an analytical basis for comparison across regulatory states in the Global South and clarifies the limits of democratic accountability in peripheral economies. Related Articles Aboelwafa, Tarek, and Abdulfattah Yaghi. 2024. “Parliamentary Questions, Institutional Change, and Legislative Oversight in a Non‐Western Context.” Politics & Policy 52(2): 365–383. 10.1111/polp.12593 . Alves, Daniel H. 2025. “Elections, Coalitions, and the Politics of Brazil's Macroeconomic Stabilization.” Politics & Policy 52(6): 1227–1245. 10.1111/polp.12637 . Kostadinova, Tatiana, and Milena I. Neshkova. 2025. “Personalist Leadership and Corruption: Evidence From Third Wave Democracies.” Politics & Policy 53(4): e70056. 10.1111/polp.70056 .
Costa et al. (Mon,) studied this question.