The Problem of Actor Designation in Political Analysis

Frey, Frederick W.

doi:10.2307/421726

Cited by 27 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…20,50,51 The 3 I's: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions A first step in political economy analysis is 'actor designation' -the identification of individuals, organisations, and groups who have an interest in meat reduction, and who deploy and accrue power within the system. 52 Many actors have an interest in meat reduction, including intergovernmental organisations, governments, civil society groups, businesses, scientists and consumers. The interests of these actors in relation to meat reduction varies, including private interests (such as maintaining corporate profits), public interest (such as promoting health, reducing healthcare costs, and protecting the environment), or both (such as economic growth).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Political Challenge of Red and Processed Meat Reduction for Healthy and Sustainable Food Systems: A Narrative Review of the Literature

Sievert

Lawrence

Parker

et al. 2020

Int J Health Policy Manag

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Background: Diets high in red and processed meat (RPM) contribute substantially to environmental degradation, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the global burden of chronic disease. Recent high-profile reports from international expert bodies have called for a significant reduction in global dietary meat intake, particularly RPM, especially in high-income settings, while acknowledging the importance of animal-sourced foods to population nutrition in many lower-income countries. However, this presents a major yet under-investigated political challenge given strong cultural preferences for meat and the economic importance and power of the meat industry. Methods: A theoretically-guided narrative review was undertaken. The theoretical framework used to guide the review considered the interests, ideas and institutions that constitute food systems in relation to meat reduction; and the instrumental, discursive and structural forms of power that actors deploy in relation to others within the food system. Results: High production and consumption levels of RPM are promoted and sustained by a number of factors. Actors with an interest in RPM included business and industry groups, governments, intergovernmental organisations, and civil society. Asymmetries of power between these actors exist, with institutional barriers recognised in the form of government-industry dependence, trade agreement conflicts, and policy incoherence. Industry lobbying, shaping of evidence and knowledge, and highly concentrated markets are key issues. Furthermore, prevailing ideologies like carnism and neoliberalism present embedded difficulties for RPM reduction. The literature noted the power of actors to resist meat reduction efforts exists in varying forms, including the use of lobbying, shaping of evidence and knowledge, and highly concentrated markets. Conclusion: There are a number of political challenges related to RPM reduction that contribute to policy inertia, and hence are likely to impede the transformation of food systems. Research on policy efforts to reduce RPM production and consumption should incorporate the role of power and political feasibility.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Political Challenge of Red and Processed Meat Reduction for Healthy and Sustainable Food Systems: A Narrative Review of the Literature

Sievert

Lawrence

Parker

et al. 2020

Int J Health Policy Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…To a great extent, political scientists have conceived of politics as zero-sum conflict. 3 The concept of power is often designated the central concept of political analysis (Apter 1977;Frey 1985), and most research on policy making has aimed to illuminate the relative power of different interests. Even the literature on coalitions mainly addresses competitive coalition building.…”

Section: The Problem Of Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Cooperative Resolution of Policy Conflict

Quirk

1989

Am Polit Sci Rev

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1 develop an approach for analyzing the conditions for cooperative resolution of policy conflict. I analyze certain policy conflicts as bargaining situations, with opportunity for cooperation, among opposing issue factions. As a framework for analysis, I present an informal game-theoretic interpretation of nonzero-sum policy conflict. With-that foundation, I derive implications about the conditions for cooperative outcomes with respect to several aspects of the policy process: issue content, the structure of conflict, leadership, party politics, and political institutions.

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“…Conceiving LG in this manner has implications for the political actor that will be 'designated' as the focal point for investigation (Frey, 1985). As already made clear,…”

Section: Linkage Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

State spatiality in an era of global and regional interdependence: The linkage governance approach

Buller

2015

Comp Eur Polit

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Since the 1990s, political science has been criticised for its inability to adequately theorise the role and nature of the state in an era of global interdependence. In particular, the discipline is said to have fallen into a 'territorial trap'. It is founded on a territorial conception of space that both reifies and limits debate about the state to whether it is 'obsolete' or 'obstinate' in a world where power is increasingly located in transnational functional space between countries. This article responds to this argument, providing a conception of state spatiality that stresses its contingent and variable nature. It claims that state actors can author functional transnational space by fusing together domestic and international objects into distinct 'linkage governance' (LG) strategies, although such behaviour will have unintended consequences and not always be successful. It is hoped this LG perspective will open up a more fruitful set of research questions concerning the role of the state in the fluid and dynamic world of the twenty-first century.

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The Problem of Actor Designation in Political Analysis

Cited by 27 publications

References 9 publications

Understanding the Political Challenge of Red and Processed Meat Reduction for Healthy and Sustainable Food Systems: A Narrative Review of the Literature

Understanding the Political Challenge of Red and Processed Meat Reduction for Healthy and Sustainable Food Systems: A Narrative Review of the Literature

The Cooperative Resolution of Policy Conflict

State spatiality in an era of global and regional interdependence: The linkage governance approach

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