Bureaucratic Politics and the World Food Conference: The International Policy Process

Abstract

It is generally recognized that there are enormous difficulties, bureaucratic as well as political, that attend attempts to ameliorate human problems which arise from the growing interdependence of states. The policy challenge therefore is how to create—or alternatively, how to understand and then to reform—the existing machinery of international administration to enable it to cope with interdependence. The World Food Conference, held in Rome on November 5–16, 1974, was not only an exercise in ad hoc multilateral diplomacy designed to meet the immediate threats of the food crisis; it was also an attempt to rebuild the international food bureaucracy, either by replacing the Food and Agriculture Organization or by reforming it. The Conference largely succeeded in this task; it created a World Food Council, organizationally linked to the FAO in Rome, but separately responsible to the UN General Assembly through the Economic and Social Council. Thus, an examination of the leadership of the Secretariat of the World Food Conference provides a classic case for the study of bureaucratic politics: an international secretariat not merely indirectly influenced the shape of policy; it actually made policy.

Palgrave Handbook of Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics

“…International conferences, which are often linked to campaigns, also contribute to agenda-setting and social learning in global governance; these mega events matter as much for international organizations as for nation states because such events often (re)define organizational missions and values (Weiss and Jordan 1976;Rittberger 1983). In addition, the delegation of shared tasks can increase the facilitation of policy networks and epistemic communities among international civil servants.…”

“…The 1974 UN World Food Conference, convened by heads of states in response to the World Food Crisis of the early 1970s, dramatically altered inter-organizational relations in the field of food security. The Conference reaffirmed international commitments to fight hunger and created new international organizations responsible for food security: the World Food Council (WFC), a high level political body to coordinate food policy across the UN system; the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), an international financial institution dedicated to providing financing for agricultural development in developing countries; and, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), an inter-governmental subsidiary body of the FAO to exchange information on hunger and best agricultural practices (Weiss and Jordan 1976;Shaw 2007). Institutional proliferation consolidated an international food security regime with cooperative interorganizational relations embedded within a shared norm and collective goal of reducing world hunger (Margulis 2013).…”

“…Institutional proliferation consolidated an international food security regime with cooperative interorganizational relations embedded within a shared norm and collective goal of reducing world hunger (Margulis 2013). Weiss and Jordan (1976) argue that the World Food Conference demonstrated significant leadership by international civil servants, which resulted in a successful institutional realignment of the international food security regime. Indeed, the 1970s marked an expansion of what Hopkins and Puchala labelled the "UN Food Network", which extended beyond the Rome-based agencies to include UNDP, UNCTAD, the World Bank and CGIAR (the latter outside the formal UN system) to work collectively to pressure states to address global food problems .…”

“…The Global Governance of Food Security major international food crises such as the world food crisis of the early 1970s (Weiss and Jordan 1976;Hopkins and Puchala 1978;Puchala and Hopkins 1978;Nau 1978;McClin 1979;Bergessen 1980;Cépède 1984) and the 2008 crisis (Margulis 2008;Cohen and Clapp 2009;Lang 2010;Benhassi and Yaya 2011). Such irregular flurries of scholarly attention is a simple reflection that during periods when food insecurity has a greater profile in world politics there is more interest in the subject by IR scholars; in sharp contrast, interest in the international organizational dimensions of food security are of a more constant interest to scholars of International Development and Food Policy.…”

Exploring the Impact of International Civil Servants: The Case of the OECD

“…With international treaty secretariats, limited staff and other resources restrict considerably their capacity to play any significant role (Sandford, 1994; see also Busch, 2006), and the UN Charter prohibits its agencies from involvement in the domestic affairs of member states. Nevertheless, Bhattacharya (1976) attributed the successful agreement on the Generalized System of Preferences to the influence of the UNCTAD secretariat, and Weiss and Jordan (1976) suggested that an international secretariat did not merely indirectly influence the shape of policy in the World Food Conference, but actually made policy. There are various ways in which IEs can enhance their effectiveness including, for example, the cultivation and use of both networks (involving individuals) and linkages at the organizational level with other IOs and (especially) NGOs, which can undertake domestic campaigning in support of various international initiatives (Stone, 2008).…”