Global Food Security Governance

The core puzzle of this paper is to explore the main dilemmas of global food security governance from the institutional dimension.Institutional complex theory provides a useful analytical tool for answering the core questions of this paper.Global food security governance is mainly carried out around a set of international systems for dealing with food security.However,the existing global food security governance system presents a distinct institutional complex.The core defining feature of institutional complexes is the problematic interaction between constituent institutions.Therefore,this paper takes the institutional complex as a research perspective to explore the interaction between the relevant institutional arrangements for global food security.the dilemma of global food security governance and its way out could be checked by analyzing the problematic interaction between constitutive institutions in the global food security institutional complex.Global food security governance is an important way to achieve global food security.Global food security governance is produced in the dominant norms of neoliberalism,so the predicament of global food security governance is also related to dominant neoliberalism.This paper uses the relevant arguments of institutional complexes to describe how food security regime have evolved into a global food security institutional complex.The root cause of problematic interactions between constituent institutions in the global food security institutional complex is that different actors have different perceptions of food meaning,namely,food as economic commodities,as an ecosystem service product and as a basic need,i.e.,human rights.The dilemma of global food security governance lies not only in the diversity and conflict of food norms,but also in the imbalance between them.This dilemma characterized by the global food security institutional complex is both the result of the formation of power game between developed and developing countries and the natural result of the linkage between issue areas under the globalization process.The global food security institutional complex still reflects the interests of powerful actors,and highlights the growing role of knowledge,norms and information in global food security governance.A feasible way to solve the current global food security governance dilemma is to fully play the role of knowledge brokers,affecting all kinds of related actors,especially the powerful actors’ perceptions and interests about food under the Constructivism appropriate logic in IR.Only in this way can the normative conflicts in the food security institutional complex be merged,and its evolution willmove from competition to specialization and enhance its synergy.