This paper investigates the governance of agrifood in Europe and aims specifically to offer insights for further conceptualizing and operationalizing governance transformations towards sustainable solutions within the European Union (EU) with respect to agrifood. Agrifood constitutes an important EU policy, economically, politically, and socially. Agrifood closely links the environment (biophysical aspects) and societal aspects (access to food, consumption patterns etc). The agrifood sector is crucial for food security, employment, especially in rural areas, and exports in the EU. There are around 13 million businesses, employing 29million workers, while in 2022, food exports accounted for 7.6 % share of the EU's trade in goods (EPRS, 2023). At the same time, the agrifood sector is considered particularly vulnerable to climate change, as yields are affected significantly by extreme weather events such as droughts and floods, affecting farmers’ finances and food prices for consumers. However, agri-food production is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), as it produces 11% of the EU GHG emissions. When other parts of the agrifood value chain sectors are added to primary food production, food processing, transportation, the retail industry, and food waste the GHG emissions account for 31% of the EU total emissions. These aspects demonstrate that important transformations are urgently needed.

The question that emerges is how can we maintain a sustainable agrifood system that contributes simultaneously to the economy, environment, and social cohesion? We suggest that for a sustainable agrifood system, transformations in the current EU top-down governance system are necessary. Instead, an integrated governance approach that allows coordination of the different sectors within the agrifood value chain, but also connects all levels of governance, from local to global, often referred to as ‘glocal’ (Chan, 2016; Kütting and Cerny, 2015), is necessary for sustainable transitions in the EU agrifood. During this process, administrations at all levels must have the capacity and scientific expertise to link and monitor the various processes, often acting as policy entrepreneurs and/or boundary-spanners, initiating collaborations and facilitating networks towards common policy solutions.

We focus on the EU agrifood area, that is highly industrialized and unsustainable and globally important. EU agrifood represents considerable diversities with respect to landscape, food cultures and traditions, production methods, and policies but falls under the common EU Food General Law and policy measures (IPES-Food, 2019). Although food policy has been mainly national responsibility and generally characterized by resilient governance, food crises and scandals in the 1990s demonstrated systemic and social imbalances that challenged the governance of food but also showed the need for transnational governance institutions and policy instruments. This resulted in the transfer of competences from the national governments to EU institutions and developed the EU food policy. These events acted as drivers of path breaking change instead of incremental national changes to adapt to the pre-existing governance system. Various formal and informal actors at both EU and national levels, the Commission, the agrifood sector, national governments, interest groups and NGOs contributed critically to the process, either coordinating, legislating and or exercising pressure and providing information and feedback, manifesting the need for transformation. This resulted in a dynamic Europeanisation process of food politics, policy and polity concerning the food area (Ladrech, 2010; Chatzopoulou, 2019; Chatzopoulou, 2020). In this process, the role of experts both in the EU and national administrative structures have been crucial in identifying the problems and developing policy responses. Nevertheless, the institutionalization of the EU food policy created lock-in effects, which impede fundamental changes in the governance process and policy outcomes. Instead, changes remain incremental, following pre-existing paths in the agrifood value chain from production to consumption. The paper aims to synthesize existing knowledge from the EU and provide relevant insights which can be useful for other food systems.

Within this context, this paper investigates how changes in governance can enable/inhibit transformations towards sustainability within the EU agri-food. Theoretically, the paper draws on transformative governance. The main claim is that for significant transitions to happen within the EU agri-food system, the governance system needs to include diverse actors and institutions, but also consider the power dynamics within the governance as well as the diverse practices and values of the actors. The existing top-down modes of governance are most often exclusive, characterized by imbalanced power struggles, neglecting the role of practices and values. Instead, combining both top-down and bottom-up governance understandings allows for incorporating the diverse practices and values of very different actors. This combination intensifies power struggles and value cleavages in governance. However, bringing together very diverse actors in governance also allows for exchange of new ideas and deliberations that lead to cognitive processes, and learning about potential alternative solutions that are more inclusive. Besides, such processes can facilitate transformations in governance and enable transitions towards sustainable agrifood systems. Empirically, the paper draws on various examples, such as the governance of food technology, food waste management and food social initiatives.

The paper demonstrates that the more the top-down and bottom-up approaches are combined the higher the possibility for fundamental transformations in governance towards sustainable agrifood systems and the opposite.

References:

Chan, D. K. (2016). City diplomacy and “glocal” governance: Revitalizing cosmopolitan democracy. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 29(2), 134–160.

Chatzopoulou, S. (2019). The food policy of the European Union, Encyclopedia of European Union Politics. Oxford University Press.

Chatzopoulou S. (2020) The Europeanization of National Administrations-Common Agricultural Policy in Denmark, Springer Nature Switzerland AG

IPES-Food (2019). Towards a common food policy for the European Union: The policy

reform and realignment that is required to build sustainable food systems in Europe.

Kütting G. and P. G. Cerny (2015). Rethinking Global Environmental Policy: From Global Governance to Transnational Neopluralism, Public Administration, 93 (4), 907–921.

Ladrech, R. (2010). Europeanisation and national politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Margaras V. and A. Albaladejo Román, G. De Nardin (2023). Sustainable food systems, BRIEFING Pre-legislative synthesis, European Parliamentary Research Service, PE 751.395, July

Actors in the Dutch inland shipping sector have agreed to nearly eliminate emissions by 2050 by transitioning away from fossil fuels. Several innovations in the realm of alternative fuels that promise to reduce emissions are being developed. However, transport innovations are difficult to implement and are often dismissed. While previous studies have contributed significantly to understanding the adoption of transport innovations, they frequently result in a static interpretation of factors. The objective of this study is to investigate the dynamics between the factors influencing the adoption of alternative fuels in the inland shipping sector. We employed qualitative methods to study four innovations: hydrogen, liquified natural gas, biofuels and the Stage V engine. Specifically, we conducted a thematic analysis of scientific articles, news articles and expert-interviews. Our analysis revealed a causal loop diagram of factors and mechanisms that contribute to the adoption of these innovations. Market factors, such as enough demand and a positive business case, and policy instruments, such as subsidies and regulation, played a particularly positive role in the adoption process. These findings are relevant to understand what actions actors can take to facilitate the adoption of alternative fuels and contribute to reduce emission in the sector.

The procurement procedures of state-owned enterprises significantly impact innovation policy goals. The new Brazilian legislation, oriented towards strategic public procurement, is governed by Laws 13,303/2016 and 14,133/2021. However, the implementation of these laws depends on the Internal Regulations for Bidding and Contracts (IRBC), approved by each state-owned enterprise. This article seeks to address the following research question: Are the IRBCs in compliance with the new legal framework to facilitate strategic public procurement practices? A cross-sectional research design and a mixed-methods approach were adopted to collect and analyze data. A comparative analysis was conducted on 66 regulations from Brazilian federal state-owned enterprises. The results revealed gaps in governance structuring, risk management, and innovation advancement. This scenario compromises the effectiveness and transparency of procurement processes and threatens the capacity of these companies to achieve broader innovation policy goals. Specific improvements to IRBCs are recommended to overcome these limitations.

The emergence of innovative technologies prompted the rethinking of public governance from diverse aspects, such as digital governance and pro-innovation policies. Against this backdrop, public management scholars have less discussed an emerging policy sector featured in technological transition and intensive state participation – the development of innovative industries. This under-investigation was partly due to the previous conceptualization of industrial development from the business-driven perspective, as understood by economic geography and some other disciplines based on their examination of the roles of business actors in promoting industrial development. In this sense, previous studies have not fully depicted different scenarios of state-business power relations, such as state-business collaboration, which is particularly evident in innovative sectors. To fill this gap, the burgeoning scholarship of New Public Governance (NPG) in public management provides an insightful lens to demonstrate the involvement and collaboration of multiple stakeholders in developing innovative industries. Based on the key NPG principles and concepts, such as inter-organizational networks, power negotiation, and coordinated policy formation (/implementation), this paper identifies three mechanisms of state-business collaboration in the context of innovative industries: (1) sharing of resources for innovation, (2) reconfiguration of innovation-oriented institutions, and (3) formation of networks between endogenous and exogenous businesses. Based on this framework, this paper examines the development of the autonomous vehicle industry in Changsha, a Chinese city with poorer technology foundations than developed cities. By employing qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, participatory observation, and document analysis, the empirical investigation of this paper explores how the state and business established equal power relations in growing an innovative industry with the agglomeration of high-tech firms and the upgrading of the city’s innovation capabilities. The findings showcase that through the three mechanisms above, the state collaborated with firms and leveraged firms to participate in forming and implementing policies oriented toward developing innovative industries. This paper reveals how NPG functions based on a new form of state-business power relation (i.e., state-business collaboration). As a consequence of their collaboration, the state combined its pursuits with business actors’ pursuits and altered the previous business-driven industrial development pathway into a state-business collaborative mode. By developing an NPG framework encompassing multiple mechanisms, this paper highlights the significance of bilateral state-business collaboration, instead of any party’s unilateral domination, in (re)forming policies in the context of innovative industries. This paper integrates the NPG insights into related disciplines (e.g., economic geography) and renews their previous business-driven perspective of state-business power relations in industrial development. Meanwhile, such cross-fertilization extends public management research by unpacking collaborative governance dynamics in broader policy sectors.

Central Bank Digital currency (CBDC) is a new issue that over 90% of central banks around the world are interested in exploring and researching. However, previous research works have not provided an adequate account of the pathway leading to an adoption of CBDC. The objective of this research paper aims to investigate and understand the role of institution on CBDC adoption and develop concept of successful CBDC implementation that meets the public adoption.

The study uses institution theory as a main theoretical background. The study also integrates the institution theory with other frameworks including concepts of Collaborative Governance, and New Public Governance (NPG) theory. This study employs a qualitative-based, multiple case studies approach. Data was collected from in-dept interview, supplemented with secondary data by (1) reviewing the origin, design concept, and definition of CBDC from articles and various research both inside and outside the country; (2) analyzing and examining the role of institution on adoption of CBDC, i.e. network externality and the role of institutions, and collaboration in supporting the innovation adoption; and (3) conducting in-depth interviews with purposive sampling to gather opinion related to concept of CBDC implementation to gain adoption and proper with the public’s needs.

This study found that the main factors affecting the adoption of CBDC are composed of collaboration, citizen participation, trust-building capacity, government's support, network externality, and focused communication that should be enhanced. The study, therefore, also proposes collaborative governance between public and private in designing of CBDC implement to gain the public adoption. Some policy recommendations have been offered.