Understanding the Failure of Food Safety Regulatory Implementation

Abstract

This chapter moves on to a discussion of the regulatory segmentation in the third key dimension of the food safety regime: behaviour modification. Behaviour modification in general refers to the changes in individual and organisational behaviour aimed at improving the regulatory regime. 1 In the case of the food safety regime, behaviour modification encompasses the regulatory implementation of food safety standards, laws, and regula-tions. Implementation enables food producers and food regulators to modify behaviours that undermine food safety. As with the previous case of food safety standard setting and food safety information communica-tion, the process of regulatory segmentation in food safety implementa-tion had a different impact on consumers through the operation of differential regulatory arrangements for various groups. At the core of this chapter is the argument that different patterns of regulatory imple-mentation are shaped by the differential allocation of regulatory incentives and resources between the various consumer groups. Effective implementation of food safety is shaped by the interaction of food consumers, producers, and regulators. Food consumers exert influ-ence over the implementation of food safety standards by producers, but more importantly, they influence regulators' implementation through the exercise of their political and market power. The effectiveness and capacity of food safety implementation depend on the extent to which consumers can use their political and market power to entrench more capable and effective systems of regulatory governance. For example, in comparison © The Author(s) 2017 G. Zhou, The Regulatory Regime of Food Safety in China, Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50442-1_8 209 with other groups, ordinary consumers were exposed to more problems in food safety implementation and subsequently more food safety crises. Within the segmented food safety regime, not only is the political and market power of each group distributed unevenly, but the derived inequal-ities are " locked in " through differential regulatory governance systems creating the uneven patterns of implementation that I analyse in this chapter. In other words, the outcome of food safety implementation differs depending on the political and economic position of the various consumer groups involved. Four fragmented consumer groups have shaped food safety implemen-tation in different ways. The political power and control of resources possessed by the politically privileged created and institutionalised the exclusive supply system under the segmented regime, which ensured the effective implementation of food safety for the group. Foreign consumers' economic and political significance enabled the segmented regulatory arrangement, in which the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ), as the sole regulator, enhanced the effectiveness and efficiency of food safety implementation. The group of affluent consumers had strong market power to create incentives for food producers to continue improving food safety implementation and the capacity to pay a premium for it. In contrast, ordinary domestic consumers did not have the political or market power to stimulate effective food safety implementation from either food producers or regulators. This chapter advances the argument that the powerlessness of ordinary domes-tic consumers limited their impact on the effectiveness of safety imple-mentation, and hence they were susceptible to the systematic implementation biases embedded in the segmented arrangements. The case study of adulterated cooking oil that concludes the chapter illustrates this disadvantaged position of ordinary domestic consumers. The chapter proceeds to outline this argument as follows. Sections 1 and 2 focus on the segmented arrangements of food safety implemen-tation for foreign consumers and the politically privileged. Section 3 introduces how affluent consumers are able to influence food produ-cers for effective implementation. Section 4 constitutes the key focus of the chapter, providing a detailed analysis of the regulatory implemen-tation arrangements for ordinary domestic consumers and explaining the systematic implementation biases that led to the failure of food safety implementation for this group. Those biases are revisited in the case study on adulterated cooking oil that concludes the chapter. This 210 G. ZHOU