This paper deals with the processes by which Sustainable Development (as a prescriptive set of global norms) is subject of different forms of "translation" (negociation, selective appropiation, reformulation) and institutional construction in the context of rural policies in Brazil and Mexico. We focus on the paths of institutional change which arise from the policy building of SD and affect the frames ofregulation and interaction between the different components of rural societies and between those and authorities. Comparatism highlights both regularities and main divergences between the processes of institutionalization of sustainability in Brazil and Mexico, as well as it allows to question the meanings of current institutional changes.