Reconceptualizing Food Regimes from a National (State-Capital Nexus) Perspective

Abstract

This paper undertakes a critique of the previously dominant globalist theorization of food regimes represented by the work of Friedmann and McMichael, especially in their 1989 paper Agriculture and the State System: The Rise and Decline of National Agricultures, 1870 to the Present. Given what are considered to be serious theoretical and empirical shortcomings of this work arising from its failure to adequately theorize the nature of capitalism, its relation to the state, and consequently the substance and periodization of food regimes, this contribution presents a significantly revised theoretical foundation for thinking about the political economy dynamics underlying food regimes. The paper then deploys this revised foundation as the basis for proposing a new periodization featuring five international food regimes rather than Friedmann and McMichael’s three ‘global’ regimes. Special attention is devoted to justifying the existence and exploring the character of the proposed first, second, and fifth international food regimes, since the first and fifth have not previously been mooted and the second is, as conceptualized here, substantively different from Friedmann and McMichael’s first food regime, with which it broadly coincides chronologically.