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Scientizing Food Safety: Resistance, Acquiescence, and Localization in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Jessica Epstein
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Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, formal scientific risk management has been codified at all levels of food safety governance in affluent states: firm-level standards, national regulation, and international law. Developing countries' access to affluent importers and power in international standard-setting fora now hinges on their scientific capacity. This article explores the consequences of these developments in India, which moved quickly from resistance to acquiescence, and then later to mobilization around narratives of scientific risk management's local benefits. The case suggests a two-stage model of scientization among developing countries: (1) coercive and competitive mechanisms drive adoption of science-based governance models, and (2) as local actors mobilize to meet foreign demands, they attach their own interests and agendas to science-based reforms. The outcome is a set of rational myths about the benefits of scientization. The article draws on content analysis of organizational, policy, and news documents and a small set of interviews with highly placed pubic officials and industry representatives.

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Law & Society Review , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 893 - 920
Copyright
© 2014 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank the three anonymous reviewers, Lane Kenworthy, Marc Schneiberg, and Christina Xydias, for helpful feedbacks on prior drafts. She also thanks the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore for its generous hosting in the fall of 2009.

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