Pablo Torres

Biography:

Pablo is a first-year PhD student at the UCL Department of Political Science. He holds an MSc in Regulation (Government and Law) from the LSE and an LLB from the University of Chile. Before starting his PhD, Pablo was adjunct researcher at the Centre of Regulation and Competition at the University of Chile Law School. He is also a member of an NGO aimed to study and contribute to the constitutional change process in Chile.

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PhD title:

Government Control in the Entrepreneurial State: Evidence from European State-Owned Enterprises

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PhD Short Abstract:

This research project seeks to study how the trend to discipline state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through private sector-style organizational structures and performance measures impacts the state capacity to respond to social needs and use public ownership for achieving common good oriented goals (e.g. addressing the issues of climate change, implementing industrial policy). In more concrete terms, this project aims to study how governments deal with the trade-off between political control and autonomy in the context of SOEs and how particular relationships between those elements may impact on state capacity. Among other things, the project will explore the extent to which the loss of control for central governments derived from corporatization affects their incentives to influence appointment decisions in SOEs. This research aims to be a contribution by taking the study and debates developed in the field of state capacity and governance quality to the particular nature of the entrepreneurial state.

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Research Interests:

• Public Policy and Administration
• State Capacity
• Bureaucracy
• Political Economy

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Research Groups:

Public Policy, Management and Regulation