Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance - Edited by Jennifer Clapp and Doris Fuchs

Abstract

Indeed, based on an investigation of the role of corporate power in global agrifood governance and its implications for sustainability, issues of democratic legitimacy—that is, questions of participation, transpar- ency, and accountability—remain as the central issues in global food governance. While public actors are not necessarily “good” nor private actors necessarily “bad” forces in governance, public actors generally are selected by more participatory processes and have to be accountable to more interests and criteria than private ones. Accordingly, the book’s documentation of the large role corporate actors play in global agrifood 20 Jennifer Clapp and Doris Fuchs governance today raises the questions of how to select the new “gover- nors” and how to make them accountable to those governed. By provid- ing a fi rst set of answers to the questions of the corporate power in global agrifood governance and its consequences, then, the book and the case studies gathered in it serve to guide future research on the topic of agri- food corporations and global food governance toward pivotal issues for the future of humankind: the issues of the sustainability and democratic legitimacy of the global food system and global food governance