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In person icon De-Compartmentalising Agricultural Policy Making? The New Politics of Food and Agriculture

European Union
Governance
Institutions
Interest Groups
Public Policy
P059
Carsten Daugbjerg
University of Copenhagen
Peter H. Feindt
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Carsten Daugbjerg
University of Copenhagen

In person icon Building: Maths, Floor: 3, Room: 326

Thursday 09:00 - 10:40 BST (04/09/2014)

Abstract

Traditionally food and agricultural policy in Western democracies has been considered a prime example of compartmentalised policy making: an institutionally insulated policy field with a closed policy community, stabilised by considerable benefits to the insiders, making policy reform a high stake game. The policy field is surrounded by high entry barriers in terms of its arcane technical regulations and diffuse costs to taxpayers, consumers and the environment. Nevertheless, the agricultural policy agenda has been broadened with farm policy issues now interlinking with other policy domains (food safety, energy supplies, environmental protection, development aid etc.). New ideas and values which sometimes conflict, or which are not always easily reconcilable, with those previously guiding agricultural policy have entered the broader agricultural and food policy domain. This panel explores the extent to which this has left the compartmentalised nature of the policy field intact. The panel aspires to assess and explain the degree of de-compartmentalisation of food and agricultural policy by focusing on the politics and policy dimensions. Has the adaptation to WTO rules, the environmental policy integration or the promotion of biofuels led to de-compartmentalisation of agricultural policy making with new interests, such as trade, environmental, developmental, animal welfare and consumer groups, influencing policy measures? Or is the compartmentalised nature of the policy field still intact? Are affected non-agricultural interests still discursively marginalised? Do institutional logics still create a bias towards producer interests and productivist technologies? This panel aims to explore the assumption that it is exactly here – in the processes of power struggle and interest competition – that any de-compartmentalisation would materialise. The papers in this panel combine conceptual reflection and empirical evidence, contributing to discussions on food governance and wider debates on policy (de-)compartmentalisation.

Title Details
Explaining Reform and Reversal of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy From 1992 to 2013 View Paper Details
Is the CAP still Compartmentalised? An Examination of the 2013 CAP Reform Under the Co-Decision Process View Paper Details
The New Politics of Food in the United States View Paper Details
The Politics of Agricultural Patents in Germany – A Case of De-Compartmentalising Agricultural Policy Making? View Paper Details