Global Food Governance and Norms: A Critical Historical Analysis of the Development of Science and Politics

Date

2025-5

Author

Ünal, Gürhan

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This thesis examines the role of science and technology in the institutionalization of productivist agricultural practices within global food governance. Existing accounts focus on macro-level political-economic processes and international rules and norms in explaining the dominance of productivist paradigm, thus externalizing science and technology. This thesis adopts insights from practice-oriented norm scholarship and the Science and Technology Studies (STS) in order to endogenize science within social analysis. Through a critical historical analysis of the changes in plant improvement practices during the 19th and 20th centuries, it demonstrates the interplay between science and politics in the co-production of technical designs in plant breeding and the institutions advancing them. It argues that scientific ideas and technological innovations contributed to the emergence and normativity of the industrial farming model by simultaneously providing enabling technical infrastructure and rendering it neutral, objective and scientific. This thesis contributes to the critical norm scholarship by confirming the relevance of technical practices in normative change and providing a novel entry point by introducing global food governance. It also contributes to the critical agrifood studies by providing an extended investigation of the legitimizing role of scientific practices.

Subject Keywords

Global Good Governance, plant genetic resources, practice-oriented norm theory,, Science and Technology Studies, international norms

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/114639

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis