Abstract
The food democracy discourse has emerged as a normatively grounded critique of an increasingly transnational agri-food system and its dominant co-regulatory mode of governance, where private and public norms and standards interact with public policy and regulation in complex ways. Analyzing competing agri-food discourses through a legitimacy lens can contribute to understanding how authority is transferred from traditional, hierarchical and state-centered constellations to a range of novel agri-food governance arrangements. This article reconstructs and compares the legitimacy constructions articulated in the co-regulation and the food democracy discourses, generating three key findings: first, there are two distinct articulations of food democracy discourse, which we label liberal and strong food democracy; second, while conceptualizations of legitimacy in the liberal food democracy and the co-regulatory discourse share many commonalities, legitimacy in the co-regulatory discourse relies more heavily on output, while the liberal food democracy discourse is more sensitive to issues of input and throughput legitimacy; third, the strong food democracy discourse articulates a critical counter-model that emphasizes inclusive deliberation which in turn is expected to generate a shared orientation towards the common good and countervailing power.
Highlights
In recent decades, the governance of the agri-food system has increasingly involved private actors, including food producers, third-party auditors and certifiers, civil society organizations (CSOs), and food retailers
We find that the construction of output legitimacy in the co-regulation discourse is derived from specific capabilities associated with the public, private and civil society sectors
Our analysis shows a well-elaborated and complex construction of legitimacy in the co-regulation discourse: 1) the input legitimacy construct emphasizes expertise of scientists and practitioners, complemented by, albeit limited, participation opportunities for affected groups and stakeholders; 2) the output legitimacy construct connects effective and efficient provision of safe, healthy, sustainable and ethical food with the creation of differentiated markets through the interplay of public and private regulation; and 3) throughput legitimacy is constructed around notions of reliable, independent auditing, traceability, and varying degrees of transparency and deliberation in rulemaking
Summary
The governance of the agri-food system has increasingly involved private actors, including food producers, third-party auditors and certifiers, civil society organizations (CSOs), and food retailers. In this shift from public authority to hybrid food governance, responsibilities and interests collide, layer and diverge (Verbruggen & Havinga, 2017). This practice of ‘co-regulation’ is reflected in an extensive academic and practitioner discourse. In addition to concerns about how food is produced, distributed and consumed, there are wider societal issues intertwined with co-regulation, including concerns over workers’ rights, migration, ecological sustainability, gender issues, rural livelihoods, trade and global food security (Fuchs, Kalfagianni, & Havinga, 2009)
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