Nexus Governance and Policy Inter-Linkages in Food and Agricultural Governance

KEY WORDS: Agri-Food Policy, Environmental Policy, Globalization, Nexus Governance, Policy Analysis, Policy Inter-linkages Food and agricultural policies are at the center of many global sustainability challenges. An increasingly wide variety of links and spill overs between agricultural and food policies with other policy domains has been observed. Indeed, a defining characteristic of current food and agricultural policies are cross-sectoral arrangements that constitute new policy inter-linkages between agri-food issues and other policy domains like environment and climate change, energy, water, health, bio-technology, development, trade, security, international politics, and migration. These agri-food specific inter-linkages can generate impacts in other dimensions, affect inter- and intra-generational justice and take shape in different geographical levels. This has created various challenges for policy integration. The new EU Commission’s announcement to set up a “green deal” is just one of the many expressions to make the nexus between food and agriculture with many other policy domains. As in the EU’s case, policy inter-linkages are situated either within an already existing landscape of sectoral institutions in which the policy agenda expands to include new extra-sectoral challenges, or certain policy aspects become internationalized. New domestic and global policy actors have been mobilized and actors who previously were only sporadically and marginally involved in agricultural policy making have now become more important players. This has led to new policy alliances being formed and new ideas being brought into cross-sectoral governance. These trends force food and agricultural policies to shape up and change. On the one hand, the agricultural sector has lost its privileged position as an exceptional sector. In the past, agriculture was considered a special economic domain in need of special care. Public policies were aimed to provide affordable food for all while farmers could obtain a steady and sufficient income. Since the mid-1980s the exceptional position has increasingly come under scrutiny. The externality effects of the farm policies, such as environmental damage and trade distortions, made more people argue that agriculture should be considered an industry operating in a similar fashion to those of other industries. Over the recent two or three decades the nature of policy making in the agricultural and food sector has gradually changed and challenged the compartmentalized style of policy making and its sector-specific, exceptionalist legitimation, ushering in new, post-exceptionalist policy constellations (Daugbjerg/Feindt 2017). On the other hand, however, agriculture is also key to create a more sustainable world. Reducing poverty, achieving food security and improved nutrition, reducing emissions, storing carbon dioxide, producing bio-fuels, and restoring bio-diversity require an adapted agricultural and food sector. Additionally, agriculture is seen as a strategic sector where new international geo-political and security challenges are emerging, due the consequences of climate crisis such as migration, flooding and extreme weather conditions; in a way, a new exceptional position for agriculture is looming. The puzzle we explore in this Section is how post-exceptionalism, or, new types of exceptionalism in agriculture and food policy and politics take shape and how this phenomenon can be approached analytically and theoretically. The ways in which cross-sectoral food and agricultural governance unfolds are not well understood. Decompartmentalisation, inter-linkages with other policy domains, politicization, internationalization and reframing of policy issues associated with post-exceptionalism challenge standard analytical and theoretical approaches to studying food and agricultural policy and politics. There is an increasing demand for theoretical and empirical research on the relationships among the components of cross-sectoral governance arrangements, their potential for policy integration and a coordinated and coherent set of policies. Moreover, transboundary food-system threats and structural changes in economic systems, such as natural disasters, transboundary diseases, increased migration and urbanization, facilitate transformations towards more flexible, complex, internationalized and contested patterns of food policy and governance and further substantiate the need for new analytical approaches. Therefore, this Section welcomes Panel proposals that study the nature and effects of recent trends in food and agricultural policies and politics and develop innovative analytical approaches that reflect the more complex and fluid nature of the policy field. We are especially interested in the mechanisms that explain how the new food and agricultural policies are shaped and interlink with other policy domains, and invite Panels that identify, assess and evaluate cross-sectoral agri-food governance and policy inter-linkages from different perspectives: I. Institutional perspective: How to explain the cross-sectoral institutional design of food and agricultural policies? How to implement coherent policy designs and sustainable planning and implementation of policy measures in cross-sectoral governance? How do norms, ideas, standards, and procedures emerge, develop, impact and interact in agri-food policy inter-linkages, and how do their meanings get translated, localized, or contested? II. Agency perspective: Which actors are the key drivers of policy inter-linkages and by which means do they pursue their goals? How do the roles of policy actors change in cross-sectoral agri-food governance (e.g. new coordinating functions, cross-sectoral exchange of staff?) III. Perspective of policy effectiveness: In how far is agri-food policy complimentary to other policy goals or conversely? Is the pursuit of agri-food policy goals detrimental to progress in other issue areas (trade-offs, rebound effects)? Which cross-sectoral approaches create synergies, complementarities and co-benefits among different policy goals? How can the positive effects systematically be measured? IV. Perspective of research methods: What is the role of science and technology to support policy coherence for cross-sectoral goal implementation (science-technology-policy interface)? Which methods are appropriate to enhance the inclusiveness and legitimacy of research outcomes (citizen science, adoption of a participatory research approach involving many stakeholders, living labs)? Do we need more holistic approaches to contextually evaluate cross-sectoral agri-food governance (quantitative models, fore sighting tools)? How and on the basis of which normative criteria can transboundary and inter-generational effects of cross-sectoral agri-food governance and policy inter-linkages be evaluated and measured (winners and losers)? (foreseen 2 Panels)