Local governance of a field in transition: The food policy council movement

Abstract

Food regime analysis and some governance approaches contend that the construction of the next food regime depends on social movements and that novel conceptualizations as well as meso-level approaches are needed. A revision of field theory is employed to analyze food policy councils (FPCs) as a movement that represents a North American manifestation of emergent place-based governance. Analyzing FPCs' framing of the food system as strategic action fields, it is argued that FPCs may function as internal governance units that mediate local implementation of the next food regime. Other than a novel devolution toward the local level, FPCs' tactical repertoire reflects a dissonance between conventional means and claims of alternative/oppositional objectives. Various processes associated with a rationalization of the expertise and logic of singular fields may subvert the very form that frames FPCs' place-based democratic aspirations. Transformational capacities are assessed in view of Wright's qualitative distinction of transformational strategies.