Power and the Analysis of the Food System

Abstract

This paper stresses that in order to understand the current restructuring processes in the food system it is necessary to take explicitly into account the role of power as a driving organizational force. Agricultural economics, drawing pervasively on the walrasian model, has mainly analysed power in the form of market and bargaining power. Stemming from different definitions of power, the paper focuses on some definitions suggested by the new institutional economics and the network theory, showing their relevance to the analysis of the food marketpower, scale-free networks, new institutional economics