Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political economy of food'

The food security crisis which gripped the sub Sahara Africa after the drought in 1999/2000 threatened development initiatives in these countries. Zimbabwe&rsquo
s situation has since worsened and the country has failed to recuperate from the food problems, even after an improvement in the climatic conditions. International and local food aid activities then became a priority in the fight to sustain the right to food for the affected regions. It is argued in this research that if food aid is distributed on the basis of need it will enable the vulnerable populations recuperate form food insecurity problems. It is also postulated that if well implemented, food aid programmes are also able to play the dual role of averting starvation and leading to long term development. This thesis departs from the allegations of food aid politicisation in Zimbabwe.

Using the rational choice and neopatrimonial theories of individual behaviour, this research endeavored to ascertain whether political decisions influenced the government food aid distributions which were conducted through the Grain Marketing Board. In line with these theories, it is argued in this study that politicians behave in a manner that maximizes the fulfillment of their individual needs rather than the needs of the people who vote them in positions of power.

A qualitative approach was adopted in this study and data was gathered through household interviews in the Seke and Goromonzi districts of the Mashonaland East province in Zimbabwe. Furthermore, interviews were conducted with food aid experts from the governmental and non governmental organisations dealing with food security issues in Zimbabwe.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 1999.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 303-318). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users. Address: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p9948031.

In my dissertation, I study the spatio-temporal variegation and transnational circulation of vegetable commodities using the case of edamame beans (the largest frozen vegetable sector in Asia). My dissertation shows that food production and trade in East Asia have fundamentally changed over the past several decades. Rapid development has lifted the region out of subsistence and into middle-class and luxury consumption. As a result, East Asia is quickly becoming the center of the global food economy. The development of edamame industries is central to explaining the transformation of the agriculture and food industries across the region. I employ a mixed methods approach that includes participant-observation, semi-structured interviews with 40 edamame farmers and entrepreneurs, and GIS mapping, alongside Social Network Analysis (SNA). In my analysis, I coin the concept of “border assemblages,” arguing that edamame trade incorporates network and state-territorial characteristics. Building on this approach, my research bridges two social science sub-fields that scholars have often applied empirically but not theoretically: international politics and regional agrarian development. Three novel findings emerge from this research: First, my research adds to the literature on Asian colonialism by showing how the Japanese Empire and the post-World War Two (WWII) U.S. Cold War regime territorialized East Asia to develop a regulatory assemblage of regional agricultural production and trade. Second, after the 1980s, a new type of food regime emerged in East Asia following the introduction of new World Trade Organization food safety regulations that reterritorialized the food production networks in Asia. My research conceptualizes the emergence of the new food regimes in an East Asian context according to the political economy and ecology of edamame trade among Taiwan, Japan, and China. Third, another strand of my research contributes to the geopolitical understanding of the edamame trade with regard to food scares and contract farming. I extend the definition of contract farming to encompass international regulatory bodies and argue that trade agreements and international food laws, such as the Codex Alimentarius, have significantly shaped the agrarian landscape in Asia.
2021-01-11

The goal of this dissertation is to explore the effects of large agricultural investments on food systems change around Nanyuki, Kenya and in the Nacala corridor, Mozambique. Specifically, the effects of these investments on land, the food supply chains, food environments, and food consumption were studied. In Africa, food systems already change against a backdrop of global food system pressures, such as the inroads of supermarkets, and local drivers, such as demographic and economic changes. The large agricultural investments likely intersect with these changes, but if the investments amplify them, and to what degree, is less known. Methodologically, a postpositivist mixed-methods approach was used for an instrumental case study design with study areas in Kenya and Mozambique. Multiple data collection techniques were used, including (un)structured interviews and a household survey, and data were analysed through inductive thematic analysis and between-groups analysis. The results show myriad effects of the investments to food systems, including to land, self-production, agricultural engagement, food distribution and food environments. Overall, the investments linked with more modern food systems that were characterised by lower self-production and higher diet diversity. This change occurred through ‘hybrid modernity’ rather than linear modernity as certain traditional dynamics strengthen alongside modernisation processes. In the end, more inclusive food governance arrangements, such as food sovereignty, can counteract some of the adverse effects of large agricultural investments.
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019.
Political Sciences
PhD
Unrestricted

The effect of Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) on agri-food trade has drawn broad research interest and gained a substantial attention by scientific community as well as by policy makers. Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) standards among others represent a major challenge for trade policy and food safety. The identification and measurement of the economic implications of NTMs require the use of an adequate both methodological and empirical framework to derive sound estimates. By targeting economic sectors and issues not previously investigated, this Thesis contributes to previous literature on determining the factors that affect the implementation of SPS and their effects on trade flows. Four specific objectives have been pursued in four papers that constitute the main body of the present Thesis. The main purpose of the first paper is to investigate the scope of the reputation effect over time. To do so, we use The European Union (EU)'s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) data on sanitary and phytosanitary notifications from 1998 to 2013. Two count data models have been implemented to estimate the distribution of current notifications. In line with previous literature, our findings indicate that reputation does affect current EU notifications. Furthermore, we identify some relevant exporter countries for which reputation is long-lasting. The second paper aims at analyzing the behavior of the EU in controlling Aflatoxin (AF) contamination with respect to tree nuts and groundnuts for the period (1998-2015). To conduct this analysis, we have used a count data model, based on political economy considerations, past alerts and path dependence effects. Policy changes, including harmonization of AF standards and their further relaxing are estimated to have significant impact on the frequency of border controls. In the third paper, we seek to assess the influencing factors on food standard enforcement in the EU with a special attention to agri-food imports from Mediterranean countries. We explore if there is any special treatment toward Mediterranean countries in controlling agri-food imports, testing if past border notifications affect current decisions on the implementation of food standards by the EU. RASFF notifications data over the period 2000-2012, and count data models are used for this purpose. Our empirical results support the hypothesis that previous food notifications may slightly affect current notifications; nevertheless, this effect seems to be less relevant for products of interest for Mediterranean Partner Countries. Hence, we cannot identify a pro or anti Mediterranean bias in the way that food safety controls are implemented at the EU borders. The last paper focuses on the assessment of the competitiveness of the Tunisian agri-food sector before signing the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU. Specifically, competitive advantage measurement, based on the Tunisian National Institute of Statistics (INS) data over 2007-2012 period, has been used for this purpose. The analysis of the Tunisian agri-food sector reveals an important potential for exporting some agri-food staples. Recently, Tunisia is facing new challenges in exporting strategic products underlying the importance of adopting new business and marketing strategies or prospecting new markets. However, some agri-food subsectors, mainly animal products, milk and dairy products and cereals, remain unprepared to overcome the costs of the DCFTA due to their low competitiveness. Hence, Tunisian authorities could propose a progressive trade liberalization strategy with the EU.
El efecto de las medidas no arancelarias sobre el comercio agroalimentario ha generado un amplio interés en la investigación y ha recibido una atención considerable por parte de la comunidad científica y de los políticos de comercio. Las Medidas Sanitarias y Fitosanitarias (MSP), entre otras, representan un reto importante para la política comercial y la inocuidad de los alimentos. La identificación y medición de las implicaciones económicas de las MNT requieren el uso de un marco metodológico o empírico adecuado para derivar estimaciones sólidas. Al enfocarse en sectores económicos y temas no investigados previamente, esta tesis contribuye a la literatura previa sobre la determinación de los factores que afectan la implementación del MSP. La tesis estudia cuatro cuestiones principales que se reflejan en cuatro artículos científicos independientes, que constituyen el elemento central de la misma. El principal objetivo del primer artículo es el de investigar el efecto reputación a lo largo del tiempo. Para ello, utilizamos los datos RASFF para el periodo 1998-2013. Se han implementado dos modelos de datos de recuento para estimar la distribución de las notificaciones actuales. De acuerdo con la literatura anterior, nuestras conclusiones indican que la reputación afecta a las notificaciones actuales de la UE. Además, identificamos algunos países exportadores relevantes cuya reputación es duradera. El segundo artículo analiza el comportamiento de la UE en el control de la contaminación por Aflatoxina (AF) con respecto a los frutos secos entre el periodo 1998 y 2015. Para llevar a cabo este análisis, hemos utilizado un modelo de datos de recuento, basado en consideraciones de economía política, alertas pasadas y efectos de dependencia de trayectoria. Se estima que los cambios en las políticas, incluida la armonización de las normas AF y su posterior relajación, tienen un impacto significativo en la frecuencia de los controles en las fronteras. En el tercer artículo, tratamos de evaluar los factores que influyen en la aplicación de normas alimentarias en la UE prestando especial atención a las importaciones agroalimentarias procedentes de países mediterráneos. Así, estudiamos si hay algún tratamiento especial hacia los países mediterráneos en el control de las importaciones agroalimentarias, contrastando si las notificaciones pasadas afectan las decisiones actuales sobre la aplicación de las normas alimentarias por parte de la UE. Los datos de las notificaciones RASFF durante el período 2000-2012 y los modelos de datos de recuento se utilizan para este fin. Nuestros resultados empíricos apoyan la hipótesis de que las notificaciones anteriores pueden afectar ligeramente a las notificaciones actuales. Sin embargo, este efecto parece ser menos relevante para los productos procedentes de los países mediterráneos. Por lo tanto, no podemos identificar un comportamiento pro o anti mediterráneo en la forma en que se implementan controles de seguridad alimentaria en las fronteras de la UE.El último documento se centra en la evaluación de la competitividad del sector agroalimentario tunecino antes de firmar el Acuerdo de Libre Comercio Profundo y Amplio con la UE. Concretamente, se han utilizado indicadores de las ventajas competitivas, basándose en los datos del INS para el período 2007-2012. El análisis del sector agroalimentario tunecino revela un importante potencial de exportación de algunos productos básicos agroalimentarios. Recientemente, Túnez se enfrenta a nuevos retos en la exportación de productos estratégicos subrayando la importancia de adoptar nuevas estrategias comerciales y de comercialización o prospección de nuevos mercados. Sin embargo, algunos subsectores agroalimentarios, principalmente productos de origen animal, leche y productos lácteos y cereales, siguen sin estar preparados para soportar los costos del acuerdo de libre comercio profundo y completo debido
L'efecte de les mesures no aranzelàries (MNT) sobre el comerç agroalimentari ha generat un ampli interés en la investigació i ha rebut una atenció considerable per part de la comunitat científica i dels polítics de comerç. Les Mesures Sanitàries i Fitosanitàries (MSP) , entre altres, representen un repte important per a la política comercial i la innocuïtat dels aliments. La identificació i mesurament de les implicacions econòmiques de les MNT requerixen l'ús d'un marc metodològic o empíric adequat per a derivar estimacions sòlides. A l'enfocar-se en sectors econòmics i temes no investigats prèviament, esta tesi contribuïx a la literatura prèvia sobre la determinació dels factors que afecten la implementació del MSF. La tesi estudia quatre qüestions principals que es reflectixen en quatre articles científics independents, que constituïxen l'element central de la mateixa. El principal objectiu del primer article és el d'investigar l'efecte reputació al llarg del temps. Per a això, utilitzem les dades RASFF per al període 1998-2013. S'han implementat dos models de dades de recompte per a estimar la distribució de les notificacions actuals. D'acord amb la literatura anterior, les nostres conclusions indiquen que la reputació afecta les notificacions actuals de la UE. A més, identifiquem alguns països exportadors rellevants la reputació de les quals és duradora. El segon article analitza el comportament de la UE en el control de la contaminació per Aflatoxina (AF) respecte a les fruites seques entre el període 1998 i 2015. Per a dur a terme esta anàlisi, hem utilitzat un model de dades de recompte, basat en consideracions d'economia política, alertes passades i efectes de dependència de trajectòria. S'estima que els canvis en les polítiques, inclosa l'harmonització de les normes AF i la seua posterior relaxació, tenen un impacte significatiu en la freqüència dels controls en les fronteres. En el tercer article, tractem d'avaluar els factors que influïxen en l'aplicació de normes alimentàries en la UE, prestant especial atenció a les importacions agroalimentàries procedents de països mediterranis. Així, estudiem si hi ha algun tractament especial cap als països mediterranis en el control de les importacions agroalimentàries, contrastant si les notificacions passades afecten les decisions actuals sobre l'aplicació de les normes alimentàries per part de la UE. Les dades de les notificacions RASFF durant el període 2000-2012 i els models de dades de recompte s'utilitzen per a este fi. Els nostres resultats empírics recolzen la hipòtesi que les notificacions anteriors poden afectar lleugerament les notificacions actuals. No obstant això, este efecte pareix menys rellevant per als productes procedents dels països mediterranis. Per tant, no podem identificar un comportament pro o anti mediterrani en la forma en què s'implementen controls de seguretat alimentària en les fronteres de la UE. L'últim document se centra en l'avaluació de la competitivitat del sector agroalimentari tunisenc abans de firmar l'Acord de Lliure Comerç Profund i Ampli amb la UE. Concretament, s'ha utilitzat indicadors dels avantatges competitius, basant-se en les dades de l'INS per al període 2007-2012. L'anàlisi del sector agroalimentari tunisenc revela un important potencial d'exportació d'alguns productes bàsics agroalimentaris. Recentment, Tunis s'enfronta a nous reptes en l'exportació de productes estratègics subratllant la importància d'adoptar noves estratègies comercials i de comercialització o prospecció de nous mercats. No obstant això, alguns subsectors agroalimentaris, principalment productes d'origen animal, llet i productes lactis i cereals, seguixen sense estar preparats per a suportar els costos de l'ALCD a causa de la seua baixa competitivitat. Per tant, les autoritats tunisenques podrien proposar una estratègia progres
Taghouti, I. (2017). A political economy approach to measuring EU food standard enforcement and their implications on agri-food trade [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/89095
TESIS

The principal analytical objective of this dissertation is the assessment of changes in the political economy of food production during the transition from socialism to capitalism in Russia and China. The dissertation is equally interested in the consequences of this transition for human welfare resulting from changes in the availability of food. As a conditio sine qua non for human survival, food serves as an objective yardstick for human welfare. By studying changes in the political economy of food production it is therefore possible to draw general inferences regarding the welfare implications of the transition to capitalism in Russia and China. This dissertation uses a combination of classical political economy and comparative institutional analysis: The three empirical chapters show how changes in state objectives result in the formulation of economic policies that in turn shape the organization of food production - with momentous consequences for the Russian and Chinese people. Both countries achieved a significant increase in the output and variety of food, yet new problems concerning the availability, quality, and safety of food products have resulted from the introduction of markets. These problems are not externalities, but rather constitute a necessary consequence of the establishment of a market economy in which profit-oriented actors engage in competitive exchange without regard for human welfare. As a result, both countries are compelled to balance their desire for economic growth with the provision of sufficient and adequate food to their populations. An in-depth comparison of the development trajectories of two agro-industrial sectors (wheat and pig production) moreover reveals a convergence in government policy and economic institutions, indicating that Russia and China no longer represent alternative transition models. Following the reassertion of state authority during the first Putin presidency, the Russian government adopted an extensive agricultural modernization program, which strongly resembled China's existing state-guided reform strategy. Recently, both governments have taken active steps towards increasing the global competitiveness of their food economies, while intervening in markets as needed to ensure domestic food security. This demonstrates the centrality of the state in establishing and administering a capitalist economy.
Sociology

The quintessential image of a farmer in a field summons to mind an industry at the heart of debates over land, environment, and food. A picture of an oil rig, silhouetted against the sky, conjures its own questions of progress, growth, and power. As agricultural products modified into energy commodities, biofuels—liquid fuels derived from plants—are located at the intersection of these industrial complexes, and, consequently, at the crux of these concerns. Over the course of a decade, starting in the early 2000s, public discourse over biofuels has spanned early optimism to uproar over food security to outcry over land appropriation. This project investigates why both the rules governing and the actual implementation of biofuels investments underwent such rapid and continuous revision. What, it asks, explains these seemingly-stochastic shifts? Why do state, society, and corporate actors not align into and remain part of more coherent pro- and anti-biofuels camps? And why, in spite of media reports of protests, campaigns, and lawsuits against biofuels projects, can we not identify consistent movements and counter-movements? Drawing on original fieldwork in coastal Kenya and Tanzania from 2010-2011, and triangulating field-based interview and observational findings with media reports, policy documents, and secondary literature, this dissertation argues that biofuels are challenging objects of contention for claim-makers and power-holders alike, for two reasons. First, their position at the junction of commercialized energy and agriculture implicates them in difficult-to-track, globalizing, and distant political economy relationships. Second, at the production level, biofuels are a diverse set of crops that affect local ecologies and livelihoods in geographically-specific ways, while in energy markets, they are a largely-unified fuel alternative. These differences across sectors make them difficult to promote, regulate, and resist. This dissertation proposes a framework of contentious political economy to analyze these complex claims and responses. The project brings together a dynamic, cyclical understanding of the capture and appropriation of identities, interests, and historical grievances with a political economy perspective on new market forces and commodities. Beyond biofuels, the project considers the social and environmental repercussions of the intersection of new resource economies with long-standing grievances.

Alternative agriculture and counter-cuisine movements have grown to a strong cultural current in Western European and North American societies. In recent years,these movements have begun to converge and coalesce around the concept of localizing agri-food relations and commodity chains as a way of redressing the deleterious environmental, social, and economic consequences of what are seen as dominant globalized food relations. This dissertation reports on a regional study in Eastern Kansas of the political economy of local food relations that has arisen through this producer and consumer response. It is an effort to recognize the regional interplay of disparate forces in constructing local food systems in the interest of framing more contextualized and nuanced questions about the environmental, social, and economic outcomes of alternative agri-food development. Network, conventions, and spatial analysis theories and methods were customized and put into practice in the service of these aims, using triangulation among them to mitigate each of their individual weaknesses in representing the variable embeddedness, politics, and spaces of local food in Eastern Kansas. It was found that local food generally represents a marketing niche in urban consumerism that is served primarily by regional rural producers. The distances, agricultural and food ecologies, forms of organization, and values underpinning local food linkages were all found to vary quite considerably throughout the region, creating a diverse combination of development agendas and impacts from local food networks and making food localization a highly contested concept. Local food development in its current form is thus highly dependent on urban/rural dialectics and projects of urbanization that lack open, transparent, and reflexive governance. Critical acknowledgement of these development interdependencies is important as a step toward encouraging social, economic, and environmental justice through local food development.

This thesis is concerned with social policy during structural transformation, focusing on the case of Ethiopia. The thesis takes a realist, case-based approach to the study of social policy, which recognises that political actors construct the domain of 'social' policy within legitimising discourses in specific national-historical contexts. Social policy is a key aspect of state-society relations and an inherently political field of study. Consequently, the study integrates analysis of cleavages in domestic society along class and ethnic lines, the role of state organisations and international influences, and their impact on the social policy pronouncements by senior government officials and implementation of those policies on the ground. In the Ethiopian case, this approach highlights the centrality of land to social policy and state• society relations. In particular, state land ownership is a key part of the government's development strategy that aims to combine egalitarian agricultural growth with security for smallholders. Nevertheless, the failure to expand the use of productivity-enhancing agricultural inputs, which constitute key complements to the use of land for social objectives, has led to differentiation in social policy provision along class, gender, age and ethnic lines. Micro-level case studies link the land question to food security, including the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), and processes of agricultural commercialisation, notably the so-called 'global land grab'. A main argument of the thesis is that the Ethiopian government is attempting to manage social processes in order to minimise the social and political upheaval involved in structural transformation, and that social pol icy is a central means by which it does so. The development strategy requires social policies that enable the government to control the allocation of factors of production, necessitating restrictions on the rights of individuals and groups. As such, this strategy is intricately intertwined with political authority.

Using Tanzania as a case-study, this dissertation approaches the land grab issue in Tanzania with the following two main research question: How are new farmland investments shaping political dynamics and actors’ interactions in Tanzania? And, how actors’ interactions between and within levels of governance influence farmland investments’ outcomes at the local level? I tackle these questions by proposing an original theoretical framework which is based on two main assertions. First, local outcomes associated with farmland investments in Tanzania result from actors’ interactions. Second, these interactions are shaped by the interplay between three main elements: contingencies (C), actors’ agency (A), and structure (S). I use the acronym CAS to refer to these three elements. CAS, by combining various theoretical insights, is analytically productive because it furthers our understanding of what shapes relations among actors, and accounts for how their interactions change in time and space. It contributes significantly to the literature on land grabbing by proposing a unified analytical tool that builds up on the relational perspective that has been proposed by different scholars. In addition, CAS allows researchers to overcome misleading categorisations and to question dominant narratives that have been associated with the land grabbing literature. This dissertation is divided into 9 chapters. After the usual literature review (Chapter 1), theoretical framework (Chapter 2) and method (Chapter 3) chapters, Chapter 4 gets into the crux of the matter by first briefly presents Tanzania’s historical trajectory, with a specific focus on land policies in order to introduce this thesis’s empirical chapters, and to situate the reader in regards to Tanzania politics. Chapter 5 analysed land policies and related politics at the national level. It highlighted that actors’ interactions in relation to new farmland investments participate to the process of state formation. Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 both adopted a local perspective to capture the impacts associated with new farmland investments in district political arenas. More specifically, chapter 6 highlighted the importance of not overstating the authority of the central state, rather insisting on the key role played by intermediaries in Rufiji district. Chapter 7, seeking to capture how a specific investment has restructured the local political agrarian economy in Missenyi district, argued that Kagera Sugar safeguards its operational profitability by creating locally mediated market relations. It led to the emergence of new local patrons who used their position to benefit and foster their own material interests at villagers’ expense. Chapter 8 adopted a micro perspective, examining the political dynamics associated with investors-related land conflicts in a village in Missenyi district. I compared and explained why actors’ interactions are different even in the same institutional context, highlighting that the same local context may produce different CASs. In sum, this dissertation’s main findings are as follow. First, investments’ local impacts are contingent on investments’ terms of inclusion and exclusion that are constantly being negotiated between numerous actors. Second, although all actors exert their agency, their very capacity to negotiate and shape the social structure is partly influenced by structural constraints themselves. Third, it is interesting to note that specific local actors—and not necessarily the most powerful—such as district officials win almost every time, at least more than all the others. Although their place in the institutional architecture is decisive, it also shows that their capacity and ability to exert their agency is crucial: these district officials may have known better than others how to play their cards in the new Tanzanian farmland investment game. Fourth, even though processes through which new farmland investments affect the local political economy vary according to structural components (historical and institutional legacies), in both districts, the associated local outcomes were very similar. There are few exceptions, but the general trend in Tanzania is that most of the benefits associated with new farmland investments, the commodification of land and the increase of capital flows, are captured by government officials and political elites.

One of the great myths of contemporary U.S. culture is that America's food supply is the safest in the world. Another is that government agencies have the ability and authority to guarantee food safety and to enforce accountability standards upon food producers, processors, and distributors. But the U.S. food safety regulatory regime is as it has been for more than a century: embedded in the notions of food purity and wholesomeness that framed the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the 1906 Federal Meat Inspection Act. Although changes in food production, processing, and distribution that occurred throughout the 20th century have rendered this regulatory regime ineffective and inefficient, efforts to amend its regulatory scope and power have been largely unsuccessful. Current proposals to transform this system, including the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 and the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, however, would expand the power of government agencies to require process-based food safety systems, to test for contamination, to issue recalls, and to institute traceability protocols for all food products. Yet much of the economic literature critiques this top-down approach to regulation. Beginning with an overview of U.S. food safety and its regulation, this dissertation examines the relative effectiveness and efficiency of "top-down" "command and control" versus "bottom up" "market driven" regulatory regimes designed to resolve market failures and promote accountability relative to food safety. It includes an analysis of the impact and influence of food producing, processing, and distributing firms upon the policy process, examining when, why, and how large agri-food corporations support or oppose changes to the food safety regulatory regime and accountability framework, and concludes with an investigation of food safety crises as a catalyst for political change.
Ph. D.

This thesis examines the political and social dynamics of agribusiness in Thailand. Over the last twenty years agribusiness firms grew in scope and activity as Thailand became the major agricultural exporting country of Southeast Asia. The context of this process is explored in terms of national developmentalism, the political economy of agri-food restructuring and history. The thesis analyses two sectors (dairy and shrimp) which demonstrated substantial productive increases and were accompanied with a high level of agribusiness activity. The experiences of these sectors are compared and contrasted to determine the degree to which they characterise historic moments of capitalist restructuring and development.

This thesis analyzes contemporary political ecologies of pig farming in the People's Republic of China, as well as emergent discourses of “meatification” and the industrialization of Chinese agriculture more broadly. Situated within these extensive, heterogenous, and dynamic assemblages, which I contextualize in historical-geographical terms throughout Chapter I, I narrow my argument to three relatively neglected problematics that occupy subsequent chapters: the role of pigs in the affective construction of modernity, the microbiological zones of insecurity intertwined with industrial pig production, and the re-valorization of urban food waste through peri-urban pig farming, including so-called “garbage pigs.” Animated by broad political, ethical, ontological, and epistemological concerns about society and ecology, culture and technology, and food and the mass-production of commodified organisms, this research helps demonstrate how fraught relationships between pigs, people, and place participate in the politics of "modernity" in the People's Republic of China.
10000-01-01

Even with its opposition to “fast” and “globalization,” the Slow Food movement has embraced new media and speed to disseminate information to a worldwide audience. The organization’s use of new and social media is the focus of this ethnographic study to examine the online discourse of the movement through the theoretical lens of international political economy of media and globalization theory. Online interviews via social media and supplemental textual analysis of Slow Food-related online discourse reveals themes concerning time, education and community and shows that participation in the dialogic discussion surrounding Slow Food online varies widely across groups and new media platforms.

This Ph.D. examines how commuters in Mumbai, India, negotiate their sense of being and wellbeing through their engagements with food in the city. It focuses on the widespread practice of eating homemade lunches in the workplace, important for commuters to replenish mind and body with foods that embody their specific family backgrounds, in a society where religious, caste, class, and community markers comprise complex dietary regimes. Eating such charged substances in the office canteen was essential in reproducing selfhood and social distinction within Mumbai’s cosmopolitan environment. These engagements were “visceral” since they were experienced in and expressed through the intimate scale of the gut, mediating and consolidating boundaries between self and Other on lines of (incommensurable) food habits. Such tensions, most visible between vegetarians and meat eaters, were aggravated in the wake of the “beef ban” in March 2015, which illegalized the slaughter of cattle in the state of Maharashtra, wherein cosmopolitan pleasure gave way to visceral disgust and estrangement. In connection, this thesis examines the vast work-lunch economy of Mumbai through three prominent businesses: the Dabbawalas, a 125-year-old home food delivery network; tiffin services, informal catering businesses operated by housewives, who commercially hybridize homemade food; and tech food start-ups, run by a generation of young entrepreneurs striving for novel takes on homemade food. Whereas anthropological literature on India has analysed either the emergence of a new urban public sphere since India’s economic liberalization, or the ripples it has made in the domestic sphere, this thesis examines how these businesses address commuter specific bio-moral anxieties of maintaining communal identity, purity, and wellbeing within the stressful environment of contemporary Mumbai, by means of mediating domestic intimacy with the urban public, at an affordable price. These interventions are conceptualized as “technologies of purity”, specific forms of visceral politics of food.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2001.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The development of the global biotechnology industry largely coincided with the development of the US biotechnology industry. This resulted in this industry's oligopolistic and centralised nature where only a few multinational chemical and pharmaceutical companies control most biotechnology processes and production of commodities emanating from these processes. The governance of biotechnology has, until recently, been dominated by state actors who have endeavoured to secure national interests, including those of large multinational corporations (MNCs) based within their boundaries. The technological ability of developed states to exploit and use unevenly distributed resources to their advantage means that an uneven relationship exists between these and poor developing countries. This has been highlighted by differences in public opinion about the role and application of biotechnology in society. While some opinions favour the use and application of biotechnology to enhance food supplies and boost production levels and trade, other opinions caution against the possible hazards that genetically manipulated organisms (GMOs) hold for the environment and human existence. The commercialisation of biotechnology has resulted in the exponential growth of genetically manipulated crops in especially the United States and countries like Argentina and Canada. These countries produce large surpluses of staple grains such as corn and soya and try to sell these to countries with food supply problems. The clash in commercial interests stemming from developed countries' insistence on the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) on genetically manipulated (GM) seeds has caused considerable conflict with poor farmers who will not be able to sustain their livelihoods if they cannot save seeds for future harvests. This is one aspect of the problems surrounding the protection of knowledge products that is exacerbated by the scientific uncertainty pertaining to the risk involved with biotechnology. While some observers agitate for precaution with the use of GMOs, others feel that a lack of scientific proof of harm is sufficient grounds for proceeding with developments in biotechnology. Conversely, there are some that feel that biotechnology is market driven instead of human needs driven, ultimately resulting in developing countries receiving very little benefit from it. The Cartagena Protocol on biosafety was drafted to address some of the difficulties involved with the transboundary movement of GMOs. Although it holds very specific advantages for developing countries, as a regulatory framework it is limited in its scope and application. Developing countries are limited in their policy options to address their need to protect biodiversity and secure their food supply. This means that considerable challenges and constraints await these countries in utilising global governance of public goods and building their human and technological capacities.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die ontwikkeling van die globale biotegnologie-industrie het grootliks saamgeval met die ontwikkeling van die Verenigde State se biotegnologie-industrie. Dit het aanleiding gegee tot hierdie industrie se oligopolistiese en gesentraliseerde aard waar slegs enkele multinasionale chemiese en farmaseutiese maatskappye die meeste biotegnologie prosesse en die vervaardiging van kommoditeite uit daardie prosesse beheer. Die regering van biotegnologie was tot onlangs oorheers deur staatsakteurs wie gepoog het om nasionale belange te beskerm, insluitend die belange van multinasionale korporasies (MNK) wat vanuit hulle grondgebied funksioneer. Die tegnologiese vermoë van ontwikkelde state om oneweredig verspreide hulpbronne tot eie gewin te benut beteken dat 'n ongelyke verhouding bestaan tussen hierdie en arm ontwikkelende state. Dit word beklemtoon deur verskille in openbare mening oor die rol en aanwending van biotegnologie in die samelewing. Terwyl sekere opinies ten gunste van die aanwending van biotegnologie vir die verbetering van voedselbronne en produksievlakke en handel is, dui ander opinies op die moontlike gevare wat geneties gemanipuleerde organismes (GMOs) vir die omgewing en menslike voortbestaan inhou. Die kommersialisering van biotegnologie het gelei tot die eksponensiële groei van geneties gemanipuleerde gewasse in veral die Verenigde State en state soos Argentinië en Kanada. Hierdie state produseer groot hoeveelhede stapelgrane soos mielies en soja en poog om dit te verkoop aan state met voedselvoorsieningsprobleme. Die botsing in kommersiële belange wat spruit uit ontwikkelde state se aandrang op die beskerming van intellektuele eiendomsreg op geneties gemanipuleerde saad veroorsaak beduidende konflik met arm landbouers wie nie hulle lewensonderhoud kan verseker as hulle nie saad kan berg vir toekomstige saaiseisoene nie. Dit is een aspek van die problematiek rondom die beskerming van kennisprodukte wat vererger word deur die wetenskaplike onsekerheid wat gepaard gaan met die risiko's van biotegnologie. Terwyl sekere waarnemers vir waaksaamheid pleit in die gebruik van GMOs, is daar ander wat voel dat 'n gebrek aan wetenskaplike bewyse van skade genoegsame gronde is vir die voortsetting van ontwikkelings in biotegnologie. Insgelyks is daar diegene wat meen dat biotegnologie markgedrewe in plaas van menslike behoefte gedrewe is, wat uiteindelik daartoe lei dat ontwikkelende state baie min voordeel daaruit trek. Die Kartagena Protokoloor bioveiligheid is opgestel om van die probleme betrokke by die oorgrens verskuiwing van GMOs aan te spreek. Hoewel dit spesifieke voordele vir ontikkelende state inhou is dit as reguleringsraamwerk beperk in omvang en aanwending. Ontwikkelende state het beperkte beleidsopsies om hulle behoefte om biodiversiteit te beskerm en voedselvoorsiening te verseker, aan te spreek. Dit beteken dat beduidende uitdagings en beperkings hierdie state in die benutting van globale regering van openbare goedere vir die bou van menslike en tegnologiese kapasiteite in die gesig staar.

The local food movement has become a prominent force in the U.S. food market, as represented by the explosive expansion of direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketplaces across the country. Concurrent with the expansion of these DTC marketplaces has been the development of the social ideal of localism: a political and ethical paradigm that valorizes artisanal production and smallness, vilifies globalization, and seeks to recapture a sense of place and community that has been lost under the alienating conditions of capitalism’s gigantism. Supporters of localism understand the movement to be a substantial political and economic threat to global capitalism, and ascribe distinct, counter-hegemonic attributes to localized consumption and production. However, critics argue that localism lacks the political imagination and economic power to meaningfully challenge global capitalism, and that it merely represents an elite form of petite bourgeois consumption. While scholars have debated this issue feverishly, there is a dearth of empirical cases measuring whether or not actual local consumers understand their local consumption within the political and ethical frame of localism, leaving much of the discussion in the realm of esoteric theorizing. This study seeks to uncover whether or not local consumers interpret their local consumption habits within localism’s moral framework by using an original survey instrument to gather primary data, and conducting an exploratory quantitative inquiry.

Food is a multidimensional construct. It has social, cultural, economic, psychological, emotional, biological, and political dimensions. It is both a material object and a catalyst for a range of social and cultural action. Richly implicated in the social and cultural milieu, food is a central marker of culture and society. Yet little is known about the messages and knowledges in the school curriculum about food. Popular debates around food in schools are largely connected with biomedical issues of obesity, exercise and nutrition. This is a study of the sociological dimensions of food-related messages, practices and knowledge formations in the primary school curriculum. It uses an exploratory, qualitative case study methodology to identify and examine the food activities of a Year 5 class in a Queensland school. Data was gathered over a twoyear period using observation, documentation and interviews methods. Food was found to be an integral part of the primary school's activity. It had economic, symbolic, pedagogic, and instrumental value. Messages about food were found in the official, enacted and hidden curricular which were framed by a food governance framework of legislation, procedures and norms. In the school studied, food knowledge was commodified as a part of a political economy that centred on an 'eat more' message. Certain foods were privileged over others while myths about energy, fruit, fruit juice and sugar shaped student dispositions, values, norms and action. There was little engagement with the cognitive and behavioural dimensions of food and nutrition. The thesis concludes with recommendations for a whole scale reconsideration of food in schools as curricular content and knowledge.

This thesis uses the recent Bayer-Monsanto acquisition in order to examine historical and contemporary power dynamics found throughout industrial agriculture. With the theoretical aid of Karl Polanyi and Michel Foucault, I examine how the Bayer-Monsanto acquisition is a viable site in order to reflect the interconnectedness of political and economic forces that organize societies and markets across the globe. I briefly introduce the merger-turned-acquisition between these two former 'Big 6' firms that dominated international agricultural input markets. Questions are asked such as how has the history of agriculture led to its current organization, how have these particular firms garnered such market power, and what power structures or historical economic incentives have contributed to the acquisition's manifestation? In order to address these questions I engage in an economic-historical analysis of industrial agriculture, particularly focusing on the role of the U.S. state in drafting agrarian legislation, spreading knowledge regarding production processes, and promoting particular food products to be patented, grown, and consumed across the world. Through an examination of the acquisition itself, potential economic, environmental, and political implications are presented to analyze whether historically visible strategies have appeared to evolve to become invisible overtime. Although the result of this acquisition does involve few firms governing almost entire markets, I contend that there is more at stake than simply few firms monopolizing agriculture. The Bayer-Monsanto acquisition has economic, environmental, and political implications on a host of actors, and it forces us to question the legitimacy of democratic governmental institutions across the world and where power is situated within them.
Master of Arts
Mergers and acquisitions are by no means an emerging trend throughout agricultural markets; however, Bayer’s $66 billion acquisition of Monsanto is a recent development that has garnered attention from politicians, farmers, environmentalists, and public consumers alike. In this thesis I examine how the Bayer-Monsanto acquisition is a viable site in order to show how political and market logics are constantly entangled with one another. I first briefly introduce the mergerturned-acquisition between these two former ‘Big 6’ firms that dominated international agricultural input markets. I then ask how has the history of agriculture led to its current organization, how have these particular firms garnered such market power, and what power structures or historical economic incentives have contributed to the acquisition’s manifestation? After contextualizing the acquisition within a history of legislating land policy, spreading knowledge regarding production processes, and promoting the consumption of particular food products across the world, I present various economic, environmental, and political implications of the acquisition. Although the result of this acquisition does involve few firms with centralized market share, I contend that there is more at stake than simply monopolistic practices. An analysis of the Bayer-Monsanto acquisition reflects why we should question the quality and legitimacy of political institutions across the world, and ask where power lies within them.

Building from existing literature on anthropology of food, political economy of food and consumption, and social movement theory, I examine the direct agriculture network of Tampa Bay Florida through a mixed-method ethnography. The research consisted of one year of field-work, with 6 months and over 100 hours of active participant observation, open-ended interviews with eight local producers, and short surveys with 100 market patrons. This thesis is an analysis of the results of this rigorous qualitative and quantitative work and, perhaps more importantly, an account of my own personal struggles in joining the direct agriculture network and my ultimate commitment to the movement. This report documents one student's transition from a researcher to an activist, finally settling in a local place that occupies both worlds in an effort to help increase the accessibility of others who wish to join the movement; an equal access based not only on economic capital, but also social and cultural capital in order to sustain an alternative food social movement.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how the People’s Republic of China has used domestic and foreign policy to achieve and maintain food security. This is a formidable task for the PRC given that it has 20% of the world’s population and only 7% of its arable land. It has been made more formidable by domestic policy errors and its changing position within the international system. The PRC has evolved from a Marxist revisionist state to one that mixes state capitalism and free enterprise and has become a combination of revisionist and status quo. Such changes lend themselves to process-tracing as a methodology in order to reveal the rationale behind the change and the resulting impact on food security. To capture this evolution, a food paradigm is constructed for various eras that reflect domestic influences on food security. To this is added the international aspect; the choice of what countries it would or could trade with, as needed. Together the domestic and international are combined to obtain a complete view of the food paradigm and resulting food security situation for each era. In pursuing food security this dissertation will focus on rice, wheat, soybeans, and maize, the prime grains for human consumption and animal feed in the PRC. These grains provide much of the caloric intake of the population as well as being the prime reserve products. The results show that these products have been used as a tool of foreign policy to reward or punish other states by adjusting their imports and exports to send political messages as seen fit. The PRC has always maintained a diversified import supply base, but as imports have continued to grow, the supply base is expanding. Expansion is not through land-grabbing but by contract growing by local farmers in less developed countries and leasing land in developed countries, both on previously uncultivated lands. Simultaneously, there are efforts to improve grain production in African countries, among others. Increasing output there will increase total world supply, an indirect benefit to the PRC food security and to its image abroad.

This dissertation investigates food safety regulations and international trade of agricultural products dividing into three aspects: the signalling effect from U.S. strict food safety regulations on U.S. vegetable exports, political determinants of sanitary and photosanitary non-tariff barriers, and the impact of trade barriers on employment in developing countries. In chapter 2, we investigate the impact of high U.S. maximum residue limit (MRL) standards on U.S vegetable exports to 102 countries utilizing the hierarchical model. MRL, which is one of non-tariff barriers with respect to food safety, is applied to home and foreign countries at the same time. Thus, firms in countries with higher food safety standards are expected to have a competitive advantage from the ‘signalling effect’. The results show that high MRL standards in the U.S. have a positive impact on U.S. vegetable exports, indicating the ‘signalling effect’ from the strict U.S. domestic MRL standards. The results provide policy makers with insights into how strict food safety regulations of the home country can be considered as a catalyst for increasing competitiveness in international markets. In chapter 3, we examine the political determinants of SPS notifications using a nonlinear threshold model with possible threshold variables (GDP per capita and tariff rate). This article finds no threshold values in both variables of GDP per capita and tariff rate. Our results also show that GDP per capita has a positive relationship with SPS notifications that are one of proxy variables for food quality. That implies the importance of quality competition in agriculture and food sectors. Our finding also represents no significant effect of tariff on SPS notifications. This indicates that a law of constant protection, presenting an inverse relationship between tariff and non-tariff barriers, is not satisfied in the agricultural and food sectors. In chapter 4, we investigate the impact of tariff and SPS barriers on food manufacturers’ skilled and unskilled employment in developing countries utilizing a structural equation model. Results show that both tariff and SPS barriers have a positive effect on unskilled labor employment in developing countries, while trade barriers are not associated with skilled labor employment. This implies that Hecksher-Ohlin theory, presenting labor abundant countries have a comparative advantage in labor-intensive industries such as food, explains well our results since developing countries are abundant in low-skilled labor. We also find that the age of food firm in developing countries is positively related to skilled employment; however, no relationship with unskilled employment. This implies that older food firms change their production process from labor intensive to capital or machine intensive.

Puisque les programmes d’aide alimentaire peuvent atténuer les conséquences malheureuses des pénuries alimentaires survenant dans certains pays, leur importance est capitale. Mais, quelles sont les facteurs conditionnant le volume d’aide alimentaire envoyé aux pays potentiellement receveurs ? Cette étude novatrice répondra à ces questions en appliquant le modèle gravitationnel, habituellement utilisé pour expliquer le commerce international, au schème de distribution de l’aide alimentaire internationale. En effet, en considérant les 15 plus gros programmes nationaux de dons alimentaires, cette étude teste l’impact de la distance entre les donateurs et les receveurs ainsi que celui de la population de ces derniers sur la décision d’envoyer ou non de l’aide alimentaire. De plus, ce mémoire exposera de nouvelles hypothèses jusqu'à présent omises par la littérature et proposera une méthodologie plus efficace pour étudier le phénomène. Entre autres, nous trouvons que la gravité, la bonne gouvernance, les besoins, les affinités politiques et les intérêts économiques influencent l’élaboration du schème de distribution de l’aide alimentaire, mais que leur influence varie selon la catégorie et le moyen de livraison de l’aide alimentaire. De plus, nous trouvons que lorsque les donneurs donnent de la nourriture de leur propre production, ils prennent moins en compte le fait qu’ils aident un pays ami ou un pays économiquement fermé puisqu’ils aident leur propre économie.
Since food aid can mitigate the unfortunate consequences of food shortages in certain countries, the importance of such programs is crucial. However, what are the factors conditioning the volume of food aid sent to potential recipient countries? This innovative study will answer this question by applying the gravity model, often used to explain international trade patterns in distribution of international food aid. Indeed, in considering the 15 largest national programs of food donations, this study will test the impact of the distance between donators and receivers, as well as the impact of the populations of each, on the decision to send or not to send food aid. In addition, this thesis will outline new hypotheses that have been hitherto omitted from the literature, and will propose a more efficient methodology to study the phenomenon. Among others we find that gravity, good governance, needs, political affinity and economic interests matter in the food aid distribution patterns but that their influence vary across food aid categories and delivery modes. We also find that when donors give food from their own production they are less fussy about whether they are helping a friendly country or an economically closed country because in fact they are helping their own economy.

This study investigates adolescents' relationships with food and other community and household members' perceptions of youth and their food consumption to understand the multifactorial dynamic processes which create nutritional outcomes among urban and rural youth in central Tanzania. Youth are an important and demographically large population in developing countries. The identities created during this distinct stage of cultural production can be reflected in youths' food consumption and relationships with food. Nutrition likely affects how youth transition through a variety of states, including their growth and development stages, primary to secondary to higher education, child to parent, or unemployed to employed. Food and nutrition are in transition in many developing countries such as Tanzania. Here, many adolescents experience undernutrition, in addition to increasing access to low-nutrient, high-calorie foods and increased risk for overweight and obesity during their lifespan. Little data exists in these contexts regarding food security, food consumption and nutritional outcomes. This study utilizes a biocultural approach which constructs adolescence as a socially distinct and culturally variable period between childhood and adulthood with unique roles and responsibilities. This framework draws upon political economy theory, with influences from political ecology, evolutionary theory and an adaptive perspective to investigate youths' relationships with food within the larger context of their lives, households and communities. This study explores the ways that gender, poverty and locality affect youth and their relationships with food through qualitative and quantitative methodology. A mixed-methods approach is used at two field sites in central Tanzania: rural Haydom Ward and urban Singida Municipality. Methods employed in this study include semi-structured interviews, pile sorts, focus groups, a quantitative survey, food frequency questionnaire, anthropometry, and participant observation. Qualitative data help to gain an in-depth understanding of adolescent health and nutrition in urban and rural areas of Tanzania, and provide a foundation for a quantitative survey, which aims to provide an overview of adolescent food consumption, nutritional status, and health-related behaviors on a larger scale. Youth food consumption and nutrition in central Tanzania is imbedded within a web of social, biological and environmental processes and influenced by gender, population density, school enrollment, household structure and poverty. Food security risks and consumption patterns vary by field site, where seasonality and drought negatively impact rural adolescents' health and food consumption patterns, while lack of money and increased food cost affect urban adolescents more. Boys are especially vulnerable; they report consuming less food and exhibit poorer nutritional status than girls. School attendance offers unique challenges to food consumption. Urban schools do not offer breakfast or lunch, so most students go the entire day without a meal. In rural areas, schools may provide food through mandatory `contributions' required for student enrollment, but these enrollment requirements can act as a barrier for poorer households. Additionally, rural schools are often far from students' homes, forcing many to live at the school in rented poor-quality shacks far from markets and potable water sources. Parents and other community members view adolescents as essential members of the household who perform important tasks in the household and community. They also construct youth as problematic, and link food insecurity to culturally problematic behaviors where food insecurity leads adolescents to migrate to larger urban areas. Here, they may experience extreme poverty, engage in transactional sex, and abuse alcohol and drugs. Adolescent food consumption is imbedded within multifactorial challenges related to education, globalization, and household and community relationships. Strategies to address adolescent health or livelihood issues in Tanzania and elsewhere must engage a holistic approach where all aspects of adolescents' lives are considered.

Institutions are crucial in reflecting the economic and political conditions of their time. This thesis analyses the features of establishment process of the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey (TSKB) in close relation with the World Bank and the activities of the TSKB in its first four years between 1950 and 1953. The arguments of Development economics and the dependency theory are utilized in the discussion. The main objective of the study is to bring out the link between the establishment of a privately owned development bank in Turkey, aiming to promote private industry, and the economic environment at the time, including the Cold War atmosphere affecting internal and external politics of Turkey. Moreover, it is put forward that the sectors chosen for credit allocation are compatible with the international division of labor of the time. That is, the TSKB has channeled international funds in a way aiming at Turkey&rsquo
s integration to the world markets as a supplier of agro-industrial goods.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS)
It is well established that the modern global food system is highly unsustainable, distorted by industrialisation and corporate consolidation, with negative repercussions on the environment and biodiversity as well as human health. Innovative approaches are necessary to push food systems to be more sustainable, equitable, and healthy for all people regardless of income and wealth. In the Cape Town area, the food system is failing to adequately nourish the poor, while climate change poses increasing challenges to the region’s agricultural system. Conceptualising food systems as complex adaptive social ecological systems and utilising the Multilevel Perspective (MLP) framework, this thesis looks at the burgeoning economy in neglected and underutilised species (NUS) in the Cape Town area as a potential innovation that could make the local food system more socially and ecologically resilient. Though at present NUS are only marginally included in the local food system and policy debates, they are increasingly appearing in the food service industry, driven by international gastronomic trends. They hold potential as climate resilient, nutritionally dense, and socially and culturally significant foods in the region, but also carry ecological and social risks. This thesis critically examines the fledgling NUS economy in the Cape Town area, using participant observation and semistructured interviews to unpack its primary motivations and challenges, and ultimately contributes towards a better understanding of the NUS economy as it develops locally. This research shows that the main risks associated with NUS are negative ecological repercussions, privatisation of the NUS economy, and the reproduction and further entrenchment of unequal power dynamics in the region. In order to mitigate these risks and actualise the related benefits associated with NUS, engagement with the ecological, social, and political context of NUS needs to be significantly deepened. This is particularly true for those working in food service, who appear to be driving the NUS economy, and will require education around sustainability and TEK as well as a foregrounding of power-awareness.

xvii, 330 p. : ill., maps. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.
This dissertation is a sociological study of the Sicilian bluefin tuna fishery. It will examine the social and ecological transformation of this fishery during the modern era. This will be analyzed utilizing a sociological framework that draws on theory from environmental sociology. The Sicilian fishery has been exploited for its abundant tuna for over a millennium, providing a major source of protein for Mediterranean civilizations. However, within the last half century there has been exponential expansion of industrialized methods of production and increasing capture efforts. This has culminated in the development of bluefin tuna "ranches," which have become a highly controversial method for supplying global markets. Escalating pressure on the fishery has contributed to a host of environmental and social concerns, including pushing this important fishery to the brink of collapse. Using a combination of primary and secondary source data such as interviews with local fishers and those in the tuna ranching sector, data compiled by international agencies such as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) as well as archival data on the Sicilian bluefin tuna fishery, I will employ sociological methods and analyze the recent changes in social life and the environment in Sicilian fishing communities. Subsequently, this project will shed light on the globalized and industrialized nature of the modern agri-food system and lead to a better understanding of its social and environmental impacts.
Committee in charge: Richard York, Chairperson, Sociology; John Foster, Member, Sociology; Yvonne Braun, Member, Sociology; Joseph Fracchia, Outside Member, Honors College

To respond to the high imported food prices in their domestic markets, net food importing countries in the Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA) zone[1] are adjusting their import tariffs and homologate domestic prices of imported commodities such as rice, wheat, maize, and sugar. This research uses a multivariate specification of error correction model (VECM) of estimation to investigate the link between food imports, world price index of rice, wheat, maize and sugar, real effective exchange rates, domestic food production, GDP, and trade openness in the short and long run. The data are on each homogenous commodity from 1969 to 2012. This research finds a long-run relationship between world price index, domestic production, GDP, real effective exchange rates and trade openness. Under fixed exchange rates regime, GDP, domestic food production, world price index of food, and trade openness are the determinants of food imported in the CFA zones. Policy options focusing on long-term investment in domestic food production of rice, wheat, maize and sugar, and trade openness are the fundamental factors to curtail the increasing food import volume/bill under fixed exchange rate regime in the CFA zones. [1] The CFA zone in Sub-Saharan Africa is the WAEMU and CEMAC Countries, which are listed and represented in figure 1.

En el marco de la pandemia producida por la Covid-19, los distintos Gobiernos reaccionaron con diferentes medidas sanitarias, sociales y económicas. El Estado peruano, dentro de sus políticas de reactivación económica crea el programa Reactiva Perú con el propósito de crear un fondo de inversión que permita a las diferentes empresas cubrir sus pérdidas. Gracias a este, un gran porcentaje del sector privado pudo acceder a esquemas de financiamiento a muy bajas tasas de interés. Este esquema responde a una política económica anticíclica con efectos positivos para la economía nacional. En este estudio, se analiza el uso por parte del Banco Central de Reserva del Perú de las operaciones repo para otorgar financiamiento como política anticíclica que frenaría los efectos económicos negativos producto de la pandemia durante el periodo 2020-2021. Para ello, se analiza en un primer momento cómo se ha implementado las operaciones repos de carteras de crédito con garantías del Gobierno a través del programa Reactiva Perú. Luego, se busca comparar el resultado de este programa con otros similares que se han aplicado en la región latinoamericana. Finalmente, se analiza cómo participa el sistema financiero actual en este programa. La principal conclusión a la que llega esta investigación es que sí existe una relación positiva entre esta política económica anticíclica y la recuperación macroeconómica peruana.
Nowadays, within the framework of the Covid-19 pandemic, different governments reacted with different health, social and economic programs. As part of its economic reactivation policies, the Peruvian government created the Reactiva Perú program to create an investment fund to enable companies to cover their losses. Thanks to this, a large percentage of the private sector was able to access financing schemes at very low interest rates. This scheme responds to a counter cyclical economic policy with positive effects for the national economy. This study analyzes the use of repo operations by the Central Reserve Bank of Peru to grant financing as a countercyclical policy that would curb the negative economic effects of the pandemic during the period 2020-2021. To complete with this purpose, it is analyzed how repo operations of credit portfolios with government guarantees have been implemented through the Reactiva Peru program. Then, this paper seeks to compare the results of this program with other similar programs that have been applied in the Latin American region. Finally, it is analyzed how the current financial system participates in this program. The main conclusion reached by this paper is that there is a positive relationship between this countercyclical economic policy and Peru's macroeconomic recovery.
Trabajo de investigación

Mexico is in the midst of a public health crisis. A country formerly plagued by malnutrition and malaria is now host to obesity, diabetes, and other nutrition-related issues. Despite public policy efforts by the Mexican government, rates of obesity and non-communicable diseases steadily rise. The persistence of the crisis is the result of legislation that does not properly address the crisis. The efforts made by the Mexican government only address the education of consumers and consumer protection. Policies are limited by corporate power and corporate influence throughout Mexico. The public health crisis is a result of underlying political economy issues. These issues include poverty, unemployment, migration, and in particular, the loss of farmers’ jobs in Mexico. Public policy functions to treat the symptoms of the public health crisis not fully acknowledging the root causes of the crisis. This thesis will attempt to assess the effectiveness of public policy as it exists in Mexico and address the ways in which the policies fail to challenge the foundational issues that are a result of neoliberal trade policy and corporate power.

Funded by Nellis Air Force Base (NAFB), my thesis research and analysis examined Native American knowledge of heritage foods and how diminished access to food resources has affected Native American identity and health. NAFB manages the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), land and air space in southern Nevada, which includes Native American ancestral lands. During a research period of 3 months in the spring/summer of 2012, I interviewed members of Native American nations culturally affiliated with ancestral lands on the NTTR, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah (PITU) and the Bishop Paiute Tribe. My research included participant observation and 31 interviews with tribal members considered knowledge holders by tribal leaders. In dialogue with the literature of the anthropology of food, political economy, and Critical Medical Anthropology, my analysis focused on the role of heritage foods in everyday consumption, taking into account the economic, social, environmental, and political factors influencing heritage foods access and diet. My work explored the effects of structural forces and rapid changes in diet and social conditions on Native American health. I found shifts in concepts of food-related identity across ethnic groups, tribes, ages, and genders. I also found evidence of collective efforts to improve diet-related health at tribal and community levels. Through the applied aspects of my research, participants and their families had the opportunity to share recipes and food dishes containing heritage foods as a way to promote human health and knowledge transmission.

This thesis consists of an introduction and three stand-alone essays. In the introduction I discuss the commonalities between the three essays. Essay I charts the the main political cleavages among 59 Swedish unions and business organizations. The main conclusion is that there appear to exist two economic sources of political cleavage: The traded versus the nontraded divide and the labor versus capital divide. Essay II suggests a political rationale for why strikes have been more common in those OECD countries where the legislature is elected in single member districts (e.g. France, Great Britain) than where it was elected by proportional representation (e.g. Sweden, Netherlands). In Essay III I present a theoretical model of political support for different types of labor market regulations. From it I recover two implications: Support for industrial relations legislation that enables unions to bid up wages should be inversely related to the economy's openness, while support for employment protection legislation should be positively related to the size of the unionized sector. Empirical evidence from a cross-section of 70 countries match my theoretical priors.

This dissertation consists of three essays each of which considers a political economy problem. In the first essay, we study a local government who can engage in both grabbing hand and helping hand activities with respect to the firms under its jurisdiction. We find that there are two dynamic paths for this economy. It can either stagnate or take off, i.e., grow without bound. The path actually taken depends on three variables: If the initial capital stock, tax share of the local government, or the cost of covering up corruption is sufficiently high, the economy takes off. Otherwise it stagnates.
In the second essay, we model a situation where the government tries to help a distressed industry, but it needs to know the firms' adjustment costs to set its level of support. We show that lobbying can help the firms credibly reveal their adjustment costs, when the support takes the form of a subsidy or a tariff. Furthermore, the more firms there are in the industry, the smaller is the amount of lobbying necessary to convey information, and the higher is the social welfare. When lobbying is effort intensive rather than expenditure intensive, subsidies for high adjustment cost industries go up, and subsidies for low adjustment cost industries go down with the number of firms in the industry.
The third essay considers a game between an elite with political power and the rest of the population. Foreseeing that transition to majority rule will lead to redistribution, the elite engages in activities that decrease the efficiency of the public sector to discourage redistribution. We find that initial inequality in the economy increases corruption and decreases redistribution. The model's predictions are consistent with the empirical evidence that inequality and corruption are correlated, and that corrupt governments are smaller.

The first chapter shows that the ideological dimension is the key determinant of the decision to vote. We do so with a unique data base that analyses the elections in 16 OECD multi-party system countries for a period of time that spans from the 1979 to the 1995. This data set contains information on the ideological position taken by each party competing in an election and the self-declared ideological position of the citizens on the same ideological continuum. We estimate that the likelihood of voting is higher when there is a close distance between a voter’s bliss point and the preference of the nearest party. We also find that ideological location of the second nearest party matters for the decision to vote. Moreover, our results exclude that the ideology of political parties other than the first two nearest to the preferences of the voters are significant for the decision to vote. The second chapter focuses on why turnout varies across elections and across districts. A simple micro-founded measure of policy based party competition is developed and calculated for every district at every election in 15 European countries over the period 1947-1998. Our results suggest that a large proportion of the within-district inter-election variance in turnout levels can be attributed to differences in the intensity of district-level of political competition. The third chapter extends the research on happiness and spatial theory of voting by exploring whether the ideological vote affects the level of subjective well-being in the society. I rely my analysis on data on the subjective life satisfaction of a large sample of individual over 50 elections in 15 OECD countries. The results of the analysis lend firm support to the dominant role of ideological vote in the well-being of the individuals. Specifically, I demonstrate that subjective life satisfaction is negatively affected by the presence of strategic voting. The results also suggest that the level of well-being is lower when the citizen votes strategically for a political party that has not won the electoral competition. Moreover, when I account for the political affiliation, the right-wing voters are more susceptible to ideological consideration than the left wing one. My results are robust to different measures of strategic voting.

This dissertation consists of three essays on political economy. The first essay studies the various ways in which political activism affects policy making, drawing upon evidence from the Tea Party movement in the United States in 2009 and 2010. The second essay develops a policy-centered framework for understanding voting behavior in proportional-representation systems, and tests its predictions using survey data collected around the 2002 Dutch general elections. The third essay focuses on a specific aspect of the implementation of policy, the consequences regulatory supervision may have on firm performance, and assesses the net effect of this kind of supervision on firms' operating costs in the setting of the commercial-banking sector in the United States in the period 2001-2007.
Economics

This thesis consists of three stand-alone chapters studying theoretical models concerning a range of issues that take place within the context of political delegation: tax enforcement, political selection, electoral campaigning. First chapter studies the problem of a small electorate of workers who cannot influence tax rates but can influence their local politicians to interfere with tax enforcement. It develops a two-candidate Downsian voting model where voters are productivity-heterogenous workers who supply labour to a local firm that can engage in costly tax evasion while facing an exogenously given payroll tax collected at the firm level. Two purely office motivated local politicians compete in a winner-takes-all election by offering fine reductions to take place if the firm gets caught evading. Two results stand out. First, equilibrium tax evasion is (weakly) increasing in the productivity of the median voter as a result of the latter demanding a weaker enforcement regime through more aggressive fine reductions. Second, if politicians were able to propose and commit on tax rates as well, then the enforcement process would be interference-free and the tax level would coincide with the median voter's optimal level. These two results underline the fact that from voters' perspective, influencing enforcement policy is an imperfect substitute for influencing tax policy in achieving an optimal redistribution scheme due to tax evasion being costly. In other words, a lax enforcement pattern in a given polity can be indicative of a political demand arising as an attempt to attain a redistributive second-best when influencing tax policy is not a possibility. Second chapter turns attention to the role and incentives of media in the context of ex ante political selection, i.e. at the electoral participation level. It constructs a signalling model with pure adverse selection where a candidate whose quality is private information decides on whether to challenge an incumbent whose quality is common knowledge given an electorate composed of voters who are solely interested in electing the best politician. Electoral participation is costly and before the election, a benevolent media outlet which is assumed to be acting in the best interest of voters decides on whether to undertake a costly investigation that may or may not reveal challenger's quality and transmit this information to voters. The focus of the chapter is on studying the selection and incentive effects of changes in media's information technology. The setting creates a strategic interaction between challenger entry and media activity, which gives rise to two main results. First, an improvement in media's information technology, whether due to cost reductions or gains in investigative strength always (weakly) improves ex ante selection by increasing minimum challenger quality in equilibrium. Second, while lower information costs always (weakly) make the media more active, an higher media strength may reduce its journalistic activity, especially if it is already strong. The intuition behind this asymmetry is simple. While both types of improvements increase media's expected net benefits from journalism, a boost to its investigative strength also makes the media more threatening for inferior challengers at a given level of journalistic activity. Combining this with the first result implies that the media can afford being more passive without undermining selection if it is sufficiently strong to begin with. In short, a strong media might lead to a relatively passive media, even though the media is "working as intended". Third chapter is about electoral campaigns. More precisely, it is a theoretical investigation into one possible audience-related cause for diverging campaign structures of different candidates competing for the same office: state of political knowledge in an electorate. Electorate is assumed to consist of a continuum of voters heterogenous along two dimensions: policy preferences and political knowledge. The latter is assumed to partition the set of voters into ignorant and informed segments, with the former consisting of voters who are unable to condition their voting decisions on the policy dimension. Political competition takes place within a probabilistic voting setting with two candidates, but instead of costless policy proposals as in a standard probabilistic voting model, it revolves around campaigning. Electoral campaigning is modelled as a limited resource allocation problem between two activities: policy campaigning and valence campaigning. The former permits candidates to relocate from their initial policy positions (reputations or legacies), which are assumed to be at the opposing segments of the policy space (i.e. left and right). The latter allows them to generate universal support via a partisanship effect and can be interpreted as an investment into non-policy campaign content such as impressionistic advertising, recruitment of writers capable of producing emotionally appealing speeches, etc. The chapter has two central results. First, a candidate's resource allocation to valence campaigning increases with the fraction of ignorant voters, ideological (non-policy) heterogeneity of informed voters and proximity of candidate's initial position to the bliss point of the informed pseudo-swing voter. The last one results from decreasing relative marginal returns for politicians from converging to pseudo- swing voter's ideal position. Second, even if candidates are otherwise symmetric, a monotonic association between policy preferences and political knowledge can induce divergence into campaign structures. For instance, if ignorance and policy preferences are positively correlated (e.g. less educated preferring more public good) then the left candidate would conduct a campaign with a heavier valence focus and vice versa. Underlying this result is again the decreasing relative marginal returns argument: a candidate whose initial position is already close to that of the informed pseudo-swing voter would benefit more from a valence oriented campaign. An implication of this is that a party that is known having a relatively more ignorant voter base can end up conducting a much more policy focused campaign compared to a party that is largely associated with politically aware voters.