Regulating the Rural (1) - From Government to Governance

1. SOC226 Rural Sociology
Topic 9
Regulating the rural (1) –
From government to governance

2. Topic objectives
• Explain the role of the state in the production,
reproduction and regulation of the rural.
• Understand the implications of neoliberal
globalisation for rural governance, and
particularly the role of the state in rural
affairs.
• Identify the merits and limitations of
neoliberal forms of governance for rural
community development.
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3. What is the state’s involvement in the
rural?
• Defining and constructing the rural.
• Identifying/problematising the main issues of
relevance to rural spaces.
• Establishing legitimacy to address those
issues.
• Production and implementation of rural
policies.
(Woods, 2008)
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4. Government of the rural
• While the state has always had an interest in the
rural economy, it was not until the mid-twentieth
century that intervention occurred on a broad
scale.
• Led to the establishment of an ‘agricultural
welfare state’ in Western nations.
• However, falling productivity, the increasing
budgetary burden of state support, and the
growing influence of neoliberal ideas contributed
to significant reforms from the 1970s.
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5. Neoliberalism and the shift from
government to governance
• ‘The appearance of the term ‘governance’
coincides with the so-called era of globalization’
(Peine and McMichael, 2005, p.19).
• (Neoliberal) Globalisation – the increasing de-
territorialisation of space and privileging of
market relations, and the re-configuration of
state powers.
• Governance – blurring of the boundaries
between and within public and private sectors
and an increasing governing role for actors
beyond the state.
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6. ‘New’ forms of governance and
regulation of the rural
• Transworld governance institutions
– The World Trade Organisation and liberalisation of
agricultural trade.
• Multilateral regional schemes
– Free trade agreements: opportunity or threat to
Australian resource-based industries?
• Privatised governance
– Growing influence of multi-national agribusiness
firms and food retailers.
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7. Consequences of the shift to
governance
• The state is no longer the only actor in national rural
regulation.
• Private actors such as agribusiness and multi-national
retailers have increased power over the regulation of rural
resources and labour.
• These actors have an increasing influence over standards
for food safety, environmental sustainability, plant and
animal health, and worker health and safety.
• At the same time, organisations have emerged seeking to
highlight the significance of issues that the state is no
longer seen to have the capacity to address, such as: animal
welfare, local food security, agri-food sustainability, and
risks associated with genetically modified food.
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8. Neoliberal governance and rural
communities
• The shift to governance is often claimed to
provide greater opportunities for citizen
participation in rural development, and therefore
be more democratic than centralised forms of
government.
• However, critics argue that governance:
– Fosters new forms of inequality and exclusion;
– Places additional burdens of responsibility on
communities and community members; and
– Creates dilemmas around the democratic legitimacy
of emergent governance structures.
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