Coalition Magnets, Continuity and Change in Post-Exceptionalist Policy Making: Food Sovereignty and Agricultural Reform in Ecuador and Nepal

The idea of food sovereignty is based on the conviction that small farmers, including peasant fisher-folk, pastoralists and indigenous people, are capable of producing food for their communities and feeding the world in a sustainable and healthy way. Food sovereignty can be considered a post-exceptionalist idea as it takes a broad perspective of food and agricultural policy, including the sustainability of agricultural production and livelihood of local communities. Food sovereignty is a political concept and can be considered a coalition magnet because of its inherent ambiguities and broad appeal. While this facilitates coalition formation in the agenda setting phase and change of the policy agenda, the ambiguities provide little guidance for policy formulation and implementation. Hence, political mobilisation for policy reform based on a coalition magnet is likely to lead to limited actual policy change. Ecuador and Nepal are amongst a few countries that have institutionalised the idea of food sovereignty by including it in countries’ constitutions, legislation, policies and programmes. The idea of food sovereignty facilitated policy change by bringing about the ideational change, i.e., adopting food sovereignty as the ideational basis for food and agriculture sector development in the two countries. But as a coalition magnet it has also impeded the adoption of new policy measures due to the idea being imprecise and thus potentially leading to conflicting policy suggestions.