Global risk governance: what role for public administrations: the paradigm of the EU food safety control and alert systems

Abstract

This study explores crucial issues arising from the increasing establishment of supranational risk-governance systems that pursue a compromise between the need for effective governance and the necessity to avoid obstacles regarding trade. In these contexts, national public administrations become a peripheral module in a multilevel system where they see their organization altered and the legitimacy of their actions questioned. The analysis uses as a paradigm the systems on food safety controls and rapid alert in the EU and tries to answer the following questions: How do we give public administrations an effective role in the global scene? Are national administrations destined to become mere executors of supranational-set rules? Outcomes show that legal systems whose multilevel integration reached a high level suggest positive implications deriving from a new model of global governance not involving a reduction in state sovereignty, but leading it to a new role, guaranteeing the accomplishment of supranational-set goals and safeguarding the autonomy of national public administrations. Points for practitioners Practitioners, especially those who hold managerial positions, may often find themselves disoriented when acting in a multilevel context because of the shrinking of their autonomy as well as their submission to external rules and controls. Starting from the analysis of the elected paradigm, practitioners could find that in a well-functioning multilevel regulatory system, national public administrations are able to use their remaining range of discretion, even if minimal, in order to realize innovative organizational models, through which they may avoid direct intervention from upper levels and propose themselves as a model to be borrowed and applied in the whole system.

Saudi Arabia Household Awareness and Knowledge of Food Safety

“…European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reports 5648 (1.1/100,000) food-borne outbreaks affecting 69,553 people, with the household/domestic kitchen as the second most commonly (32.7%) reported setting for outbreaks [ 8 ]. To reduce these numbers, several countries and confederations, such as the European Union [ 9 ], the USA [ 10 ], China [ 11 , 12 ], and most of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries [ 13 , 14 , 15 ], including Saudi Arabia [ 16 ] have focused to restructure their food safety systems in order to increase their effectiveness and efficiency, as well as to restore public trust in food safety. Therefore, The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have collaborated to help food safety authorities assess and alter their national regulatory frameworks to meet national and international demands [ 17 , 18 ].…”

Risikokommunikation politikberatender Wissenschaftsorganisationen: Ein Themenaufriss am Beispiel des Bundesinstituts für Risikobewertung

“…Ernährung bedeutete im Lauf der Menschheitsgeschichte nie nur die reine Aufnahme von Nahrungsmitteln, sondern ist vielmehr zu einem Gegenstand des Genusses und Erlebens, des Wissens und der Kompetenzen, der Performanz und des sozialen Prestiges, aber auch der Sorge avanciert [ 6 ]. Die sich daraus ergebende Konsumentennähe zu Lebensmittelprodukten wird konterkariert von einer zunehmenden Globalisierung und Komplexität in der Produktion von Lebensmitteln [ 7 ]. So wurde die globale Lebensmittelproduktion das Subjekt zahlreicher Krisen, die nicht nur punktuell Produkte, sondern gesamte Vertrauensbildungsprozesse infrage stellten.…”

Food safety governance in Saudi Arabia: Challenges in control of imported food

“…Countries and confederations, such as the European Union (Caduff & Bernauer, 2006; Iurato, 2017), the United States (Jia & Jukes, 2013), China (Guo, Bai, & Gong, 2019; Kang, 2019), and most of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Al Busaidi & Jukes, 2009, 2015; Alomirah et al., 2010; Randeree, 2019; Todd, 2017), including Saudi Arabia (Al Kandari & Jukes, 2012; Al Mutairi, Connerton, & Dingwall, 2015), have moved to adopt a centralized food control system based on the single agency approach or the integrated approach. Although the United States (where the food sector is primarily regulated by FDA and USDA) as well as the European Union (where EFSA, the European Commission and the national food safety agencies are involved in the food safety governance) follow an integrated system, most GCC countries, such as Kuwait, Oman, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, are passing from a multiple agency approach to a single agency system.…”