“Carrying the black pot”: Food safety and risk in China's reactive regulatory state

Abstract

This paper explores the struggles of China's party‐state to address chronic food safety problems by adopting international best practices of risk‐based regulation. Despite formally adopting risk‐based approaches for targeting inspections and enforcement in 2002, implementation has been halting and uneven, as we show in the first analysis of risk‐based regulation beyond its OECD heartlands. Drawing on policy document analysis and 36 key informant interviews with food business operators and government officials working on food safety regulation at every level of the state, we identify contradictions between official commitments to risk‐based inspection and top‐down demands for zero tolerance and strict accountability, which leave local inspectors preoccupied with avoiding blame more than reducing safety risks. Our analysis advances recent scholarship on regulatory states of the global South by highlighting how risk‐based ideas, instruments, and practices are refracted through the distinctive norms and style of China's reactive regulatory state.

Evaluation Metrics and Method for Planned Regulatory Inspection Targeting

“…Despite the progress made in recent years, especially in machine learning, most works in literature fail to address the challenges faced by regulators on how to monitor the market for the information collection and how to process it to target regulatory inspections [24]. As a consequence, the same criticisms made to the process of regulatory inspection targeting until the early 2010s remain to this day [15], [24], [25].…”

“…Despite the progress made in recent years, most works in literature fail to address the challenges faced by regulators on how to monitor the market for collecting information, processing it, and targeting regulatory inspections [24]. Hence, the same criticisms made to the process of regulatory inspec-tion targeting until the early 2010s remain to this day [15], [24], [25]. This makes the regulator's decision on how to monitor the market and target inspections even more difficult, often leading to heuristic approaches [10].…”

Sweetener and Flavor Enhancer Food Additives in Industrial Food Products Marketed in Dakar: Frequency and Diversity

“…This presupposes good organization and detailed information on the presence and frequency of these substances in everyday consumer products. However, in many countries, health safety regulation is a weakness [21] with challenges to overcome particulary to Sub-Sahara Africa [22]. What's more, in developing countries such as Senegal, basic data contributing to risk analysis are not widely available in the scientific literature.…”