Actors in private food regulation: taking responsibility or passing the buck to someone else?

"In recent years, retailers and their organizations are playing an active role in food safety regulation. They initiated several private food safety standards and compelled suppliers of food products to comply with these standards. Which actors are involved in decisionmaking in this type of private food regulation? This question is important for problems of effectiveness, legitimacy and accountability. Several categories of private actors are distinguished based on their position in the regulatory arrangement. Private regulatory arrangements do develop in course of time; in different stages of their development other actors may be involved. Finally, we distinguish between direct (in person) and indirect (representation) participation in decision making. Some cases of retail-driven private food safety arrangements are examined." (author's abstract

The Rise of Transnational Private Meta-Regulators

In recent years scholars from various disciplines have turned their attention to transnational regimes of regulation that are chiefly developed outside state-driven frameworks. The rise of such “transnational private regulation” has also led to the emergence of private meta-regulation. The term ‘meta-regulation’ commonly refers to processes through which a regulatory body oversees another and sets standards for its activities or performance of regulation. In the public domain, meta-regulation has been associated with the devolution of regulatory activities by a statutory body to private actors with the view to enhance voluntary rule compliance, awareness of responsibilities among the regulated and reduce public enforcement costs. However, in the transnational private domain the rationale for meta-regulation appears to be a different one. We contend that meta-regulation in this domain is less concerned with the goal of enhancing rule compliance and efficiency in enforcement, but instead is more prominently concerned with the bolstering of the integrity, legitimacy and accountability of private regulatory regimes and the coordination between such regimes. To furnish this argument the paper develops a comparative analysis of two sectoral private meta-regulators involved in transnational private regulation: the Global Food Safety Initiative in the food industry and the European Advertising Standards Alliance in the advertising industry. These two organisations have developed guidelines, benchmarks and performance indicators for other private bodies involved in transnational regulatory activities. The comparative analysis is focused around four principled and interlinked questions: (i) What has driven the emergence of meta-regulation in the private regulatory domain?; (ii) What are the forms and functions of private meta-regulation?; (iii) What is its relationship with public regulation and regulators?; and (iv) How and to what extent does private meta-regulation contribute to the legitimization of transnational private regulation? The TBGI Project: Transnational initiatives to regulate business activities interact increasingly with each other and with official regulation, generating complex governance ensembles. Heterogeneous actors and institutions interact at multiple levels and in various ways, from mimicry and cooperation to competition and conflict. The TBGI Project investigates the forms, drivers, mechanisms, dynamics, outputs and impacts of transnational business governance interactions (TBGI) from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives. It is funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant led by Professor Stepan Wood, Osgoode

Hybridization of food governance: An analytical framework

Today’s food governance is no longer an attribute of national governments alone. It is increasingly hybrid, that is, the result of coordinated public and private regulatory activities that frequently transcend national state boundaries. The key to understanding that contemporary food governance lies in the interplay between different public and private actors, including their relative interests and capacities, and their activities at different levels of governance. This chapter discusses the concept of hybridization and different modes of hybridization in food governance. Drawing on the work of Abbott and Snidal, Eberlein et al and Spencer and Henson we introduce an analytical framework to study this hybridization. A comprehensive and systematic analysis of the hybridization of food governance should address the different phases and functions of (regulatory) governance: (i.e. agenda-setting and rule-making, adoption and implementation, monitoring; enforcement, evaluation and review) and other dimensions considered relevant in the literature on regulatory governance (i.e. actors involved, motivations and drivers, mechanisms and instruments, character of interaction, results and effects, change over time). The chapter concludes with a discussion of the chapters in this volume

Regulating Halal and Kosher Foods: Different Arrangements between State, Industry and Religious Actors

The Netherlands, like other Western countries, is a growing market for halal food products, that is, food products that comply with Islamic food laws. Halal food is becoming more visible as Dutch supermarkets, hospitals and schools decide to include halal food in their supply. This development has been criticised by animal protectionists and people who fear the ‘Islamisation’ of Dutch society. In this article, the regulation of halal food in the Netherlands is compared to the regulation of kosher food in the Netherlands and the United States. I will analyse the division of roles between state actors, the food industry, certification agencies and religious authorities in these regulatory arrangements. Contrary to expectation, the regulatory arrangements are rather state-centred in several US states (liberal market economy), whereas the Dutch corporatist welfare state plays a limited role by allowing religious slaughter and leaving the issue of halal and kosher certification entirely to commercial and religious organisations

Hybridisation of food governance: Trends, types and results

Modern food governance is increasingly hybrid, involving not only government, but also industry and civil society actors. This book analyzes the unfolding interplay between public and private actors in global and local food governance. How are responsibilities and risks allocated in hybrid governance arrangements, how is legitimacy ensured, and what effects do these arrangements have on industry or government practices? The expert contributors draw on law, economics, political science and sociology to discuss these questions through rich empirical cases

Undervisning i matematik för elever med utländsk bakgrund

Elever med svenska som andraspråk uppnårbetydligt sämre resultat i matematik än elever som har svenska som modersmål. I detta arbete undersöks orsakerna till varför de inte presterar bättre och huruvida modersmålsundervisningen är gynnsam för dessa elever. Metoden som har använts i denna undersökning är litteraturstudie och intervju med fem olika lärare, såsom matematiklärare och tvåspråkiga lärare. Det framkom att språket har en avgörande betydelse förelevernas kunskapsutveckling och att stöd i deras förstaspråk innebar stora framsteg i matematik. Utöver det faktum att det är möjligt att uppnå goda resultat, kan modersmål dessutom handla om en stärkt självkänsla och etnisk identitet. En god kommunikation och samarbete mellan modersmålslärare och ämneslärare kan bidra till elevens utveckling i matematik

Transnational Business Governance Interactions in Food Safety Regulation : Exploring the Promises and Risks of Enrolment

Private actors have assumed an invaluable role in today’s global governance of food safety. One of the most prominent private actors in this domain is the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), a non-profit industry-led organization that benchmarks private food safety standards with a view to coordinate, converge and ratchet up existing standards and enhance compliance with public food safety laws. In this chapter we discuss the unfolding interaction between GFSI and domestic state actors in the regulation of food safety. We offer an empirical account of how and to what extent national food safety agencies in Canada, China and the Netherlands have engaged with GFSI and its benchmarked schemes. We analyse these transnational business governance interactions (TBGIs) using the framework proposed by Eberlein et al (2014) and Wood et al (2015). We show that the interaction between GFSI and public agencies has developed for different reasons and in different ways, with different results. To critically discuss these findings, and to deepen the TGBI analytical framework, we draw on the concept of enrolment as developed by Black (2003). We argue that this concept adds to the TBGI framework a critical perspective on why and how certain actors link with each other, and with what results.Non UBCUnreviewedFacult