Framing Political Issues in Food System Transformative Changes
Valeria Sodano, Maria Teresa Gorgitano
Abstract
The paper addresses political issues related to policy interventions for food system sustainability. It presents the results of a literature review, which explores how the concept of power has been used so far by scholars of food system dynamics. Articles numbering 116 were subjected to an in-depth qualitative analysis, which allowed the identification of three main strands of the literature with respect to food and power issues: (1) marketing and industrial organisation literature, dealing with the economic power exercised by economic actors in contexts of noncompetitive market structures; (2) articles addressing the power issue from a political economy perspective and by using an interdisciplinary approach; (3) heterogenous studies. The results of the review witness a growing interest for the analysis of food systems, political issues, and the need of a wider use of analytical tools and concepts offered by social sciences for the study of power in sustainability policy design.