Securing Fish for the Nation

Food Security and Governmentality in Japan

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12349204
AutoresKate Barclay (0000-0002-4779-0965, University of Technology Sydney, autor correspondente), Charlotte Epstein (0000-0001-5693-4505, The University of Sydney)
Ano2013
Volume37
Fascículo2
Páginas215-233
Data de publicação2013-05-31
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAsian Studies Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1035-7823 • E-ISSN: 1467-8403
EditoraRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10357823.2013.769498
OpenAlexW2069135947
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas30

Concerns about supplies of food have been a feature of Japanese politics since Japan started modernising in the second half of the 1800s. It has remained a prominent political issue even after Japan cemented its status as a wealthy country in the 1980s, with the Japanese Government continuing to protect domestic food production from international competition. Protectionism is a curious policy for a country so dependent on world trade, including for food. Protectionist practices have led to entrenched interests in some sections of government and industry. Protectionist ideas are used in nationalist arguments against food imports. The protection of domestic food production, however, resonates positively well beyond the groups that benefit economically from protection and those that indulge in chauvinist notions about the dangers of “foreign” food. The issue, therefore, is broader than interest-group capture or xenophobia. We find it is deeply embedded in Japanese policies relating to food domestically and internationally, and goes beyond government policy as such, involving ways of thinking about protection of national culture, and social and environmental responsibility. Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality helps to explain this approach to food security, accounting for the balancing act between free trade and protection as well as the pervasiveness of this rationality beyond government as such

Agriculture · Development economics · Economic nationalism · Economics · Food security · Government (linguistics · Governmentality · International trade · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Protectionism · Rationality · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law