Trade and the Internationalisation of Food and Agricultural Policy

Abstract

Food and agricultural policy-making is becoming more internationalised as national and sub-national policy domains are increasingly connected with international policy arenas. Internationalisation is defined as the 'restructuring of power relations with the emergence of new supranational centres of political authority' (Skogstad 2000). This transfer of political authority to an international institution (such as the WTO) can be an important factor affecting domestic policy-making. Internationalisation of public policy takes place in the intersection between domestic and international processes in which actors seek to establish, restructure or expand international policy institutions to enable policy coordination across borders. While it is recognised that food and agricultural policy is increasingly internationalised, the internationalisation processes are not well understood. This panel invites papers which explore the way in which international policy regimes relating to food and agricultural policy are formed and/or how such regimes affect domestic food and agriculture policy making.