Food Security and Biofuels Regulations: the Emulsifying Effect of International Regime Complexes

Abstract

International institutions are proliferating over a wide range of issue areas, creating what have recently been described as regime complexes. More than complicated arrangements, regime complexes are structures: they are more than the sum of their parts, i.e. individual international regimes. While the concept of international regimes holds strong promise in this direction, academic research on regime complexes has mostly focused on how agents shape regime complexes but less on how complexes influence agents. This contribution aims at filling this gap by studying the effects that regime complexes might have on global governance, focusing more narrowly on the effects of regime complexes on non-state actors' (NSAs) strategies with regard to agenda setting for new international regulations. More precisely, we hypothesise that regime complexes create an 'emulsifying effect' for pro-active NSAs to push for new regulations whereby the collective effect of non-state actors within and across regime complexes become greater than the sum of their individual effects within individual regimes. We use the examples of food security and biofuels regulations at the international level as a case study with a special focus on the European Union. KeywordsBiofuels; European Union; food security; non-state actors; regime complexes; renewable energy directive International institutions are proliferating over a wide range of issue areas, creating what has recently been described as 'regime complexes' (Orsini, Morin and Young 2013). For instance, no fewer than five key international institutions including the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the G20 deal with food security 1 (FS) at the international level. The analytical added value of regime complexes, with respect to the former conceptualisation of world politics, is to focus on the structure in which international institutions are embedded. More than complicated arrangements, regime complexes are structures: they are more than the sum of their parts, i.e. individual international regimes. While the concept of international regimes holds strong promise in this direction, academic research on regime complexes has mostly focused on how agents shape regime complexes most of the time through forum shopping, forum shifting or forum linking strategies (Orsini 2013). For example, Florian Rabitz explains how states influence the different elements of the regime complex of genetic resources to maintain their privileged position in managing worldwide genetic resources (Rabitz 2016). However, there is far less focus on how complexes influence agents. What does it mean for international actors to evolve in a context of regime complexes? Do regime complexes change the strategies of international actors? And if so, in what ways?This contribution seeks to fill this gap by studying the effects that regime complexes have on global governance. While this research ambition is vast, we narrow it down by looking at the effects of regime complexes on non-stat...