Discursive Representation within the Institutional Void

The Rise and Fall of a Governance Network on Sustainable Food in Belgium

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4445874
AutoresMaarten Crivits (0000-0001-8623-3275, Instituut voor Landbouw‐en Visserijonderzoek Burgemeester Van Gansberghelaan 115, Merelbeke, BE 9820Belgium Centre for Sustainable Development Ghent University Ghent, Poel 16, Ghent 9000 Belgium, autor de correspondencia), Michiel P M M De Krom (0000-0003-4895-9248, Instituut voor Landbouw‐en Visserijonderzoek Burgemeester Van Gansberghelaan 115, Merelbeke, BE 9820Belgium Department of Sociology Ghent University Korte Meer 5, Ghent BE 9000 Belgium), Joost Dessein (0000-0001-6879-6269, Instituut voor Landbouw‐en Visserijonderzoek Burgemeester Van Gansberghelaan 115, Merelbeke, BE 9820Belgium Agricultural Economics Ghent University Coupure Links 653, Ghent BE 9000 Belgium), Thomas Block (0000-0002-1533-6952, Centre for sustainable development Ghent University Ghent Poel 16, Ghent, 9000 Belgium)
Año2018
Volumen58
Número3
Páginas475-499
Fecha de publicación2018-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSociologia Ruralis (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0038-0199 • E-ISSN: 1467-9523
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/soru.12162
OpenAlexW2617134662
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas30

Recently, democratic theorists have turned their attention to political representation. This renewed attention is inspired by a questioning of the formalist interpretation of representative government that presumes a strict division between elected political elites and deliberative participation in the public sphere. Several scholars argue that the standard account of representative democracy based on residence-based and electoral representation does not suffice to explain contemporary political practice. Representation, then, becomes a 'practice' in which the object of representation and the grounds on which it is defended, co-determine 'who' and 'what' is considered politically legitimate and how 'interests' are to be represented. In this paper we explore how discursive interaction on political representation takes place in an 'institutional void', i.e. a political setting in which there are no clear rules and norms to which politics is to be conducted. We base our analysis on an interpretative reconstruction of the rise and fall of a sustainability governance process in the Flemish agro-food domain called the New Food Frontier (NFF). We claim to have found several interacting political conceptions, that operated on both explicit and more tacit levels, which particularly shaped the political interventions within the institutional void of the NFF. Analysis reveals that the dominant/initial conception of the studied political process has strong affinities with Dryzek's ideas on discursive representation. Competing claims on how political representation should work were linked to neo-corporatism and transition management. We analyze how these competing conceptions play in the organization, articulation and disintegration of the governance network. Secondly, we relate this deliberative 'outcome' to the broader political setting in which the sustainability governance trajectory was embedded. In this context, a re-negotiation of the rules of the game within a new governance setting and the relationship with institutionalized politics proved to be important factors in explaining the discontinuity of the process of discursive representation

Corporate governance · Democracy · Economics · Legitimacy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public sphere · Representation (politics) · Sociology · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law · Organic Food and Agriculture