
Mikael Klintman
Professor

“Challenges to Legitimacy in Food Safety Governance? The Case of the European Food Safety Authority”
Author
Summary, in English
The ‘old’ forms of governance have been criticised for being neither sufficiently democratic nor effective. The popularity of ‘new’ modes of governance includes the embracing of values – integral to democratic processes – such as legitimacy, public accountability and trust. By relating parts of this ‘old-vs.-new’ distinction to March & Olsen’s dichotomy of aggregative vs.
integrative political processes, the aim of this paper is to find patterns for how such processes are combined in European food safety governance. The paper focuses on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). What forms of participation can be found in ‘new’ food safety governance? How are these forms of participation related to the aims of increasing the legitimacy? The article discusses challenges involved in EFSA’s mixing of integrative goals and the organisation’s view of food safety politics, in which aggregative policy processes are conceived as a rough ‘natural state’ which should be tamed.
integrative political processes, the aim of this paper is to find patterns for how such processes are combined in European food safety governance. The paper focuses on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). What forms of participation can be found in ‘new’ food safety governance? How are these forms of participation related to the aims of increasing the legitimacy? The article discusses challenges involved in EFSA’s mixing of integrative goals and the organisation’s view of food safety politics, in which aggregative policy processes are conceived as a rough ‘natural state’ which should be tamed.
Department/s
- Sociology
- Department of Political Science
- BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
Publishing year
2010
Language
English
Pages
309-327
Publication/Series
Journal of European Integration
Volume
32
Issue
3
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Routledge
Topic
- Political Science
Keywords
- food governance
- deliberative democracy
- food safety
- European harmonisation
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0703-6337