Food Security and Governance in the 21St Century
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Mississippi State University Scholars Junction Theses and Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1-1-2016 Governing the Rurals: Food Security and Governance in the 21st Century Gina Paola Rico Mendez Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td Recommended Citation Rico Mendez, Gina Paola, "Governing the Rurals: Food Security and Governance in the 21st Century" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 2432. https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td/2432 This Dissertation - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Scholars Junction. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholars Junction. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Template A v3.0 (beta): Created by J. Nail 06/2015 Governing the rurals: Food security and governance in the 21st century By TITLE PAGE Gina Paola Rico Mendez A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Mississippi State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy and Administration in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration Mississippi State, Mississippi December 2016 Copyright by COPYRIGHT PAGE Gina Paola Rico Mendez 2016 Governing the rurals: Food security and governance in the 21st century By APPROVAL PAGE Gina Paola Rico Mendez Approved: ____________________________________ Brian D. Shoup (Major Professor) ____________________________________ Dragan Stanisevski (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Rick Travis (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Leslie Hossfeld (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Vasabjit Banerjee (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Christine L. Rush (Graduate Coordinator) ____________________________________ Rick Travis Interim Dean College of Arts & Sciences Name: Gina Paola Rico Mendez ABSTRACT Date of Degree: December 9, 2016 Institution: Mississippi State University Major Field: Public Policy and Administration Major Professors: Brian D. Shoup Title of Study: Governing the rurals: Food security and governance in the 21st century Pages in Study 250 Candidate for Degree of Doctor of Philosophy This dissertation develops a theory about the consolidation of state legitimacy given transformations in food security. Food security has moved from a national food maximization effort to the provision of food to households and individuals, regardless of the production source. This definitional change was triggered by urbanization, industrialization of agriculture and liberalization of trade. These dynamics altered the formula for balance and control of a country’s territory; as agricultural output moved into a global context, urban centers became less reliant on its periphery for sustenance and thus governments have fewer incentives to provide governance of any quality to rural areas. Hence, the expansion of industrialized production has led to an increasing volume of international food exchanges and reliance on transnational networks for food provision. This, I argue, produced a decoupling of rural and urban areas, yielding a new form of governance in the periphery, which relies on negative legitimacy and the expansion of large-scale agriculture under public-private partnerships. This dissertation challenges conventional approaches to modern state consolidation in the sense that the monopoly of violence in the territory is no longer the core of state legitimacy. Rather, alternatives now exist that make possible the consolidation of state political power. Methodologically, this dissertation follows the critical case study approach. While it may sacrifice some external validity in terms of generalizability, it maximizes internal validity through careful process tracing. By tracing the trajectory of rural areas for state formation, agricultural policies, the concept of rural citizen and the interaction between rural and urban areas, this dissertation expresses in-depth knowledge of policy outcomes due to the change in food security. Utilizing findings from Colombia, before and after the 1990´s, this dissertation illustrates the impacts of a change in the concept of food security and its effects on the administrative capacity in rural areas. Findings indicate that large scale agricultural policies and violence concentrated rural land ownership into export productive commodities and altered the structure of rural governance. While food security initiatives and policies has been a boon to world health, this dissertation illustrates how it has also brought about changes in state consolidation. DEDICATION Quiero dedicar este esfuerzo a mi familia en Colombia. A mis padres Roberto y María Inés, quienes con su amor y dedicación me enseñaron el valor de la educación y el la dedicación al trabajo. Nada me hizo más feliz que decirle a mi familia que ya tenían una doctora en la familia. Ellos saben del esfuerzo y la dedicación que me llevaron a concluir este proyecto. A mis hermanos Camilo, Diego y Daniel porque siempre han estado ahí, preocupándose por mí. Camilo, gracias por hacerme reír y sacarme de casillas todo el tiempo. Gracias Diego por hacerme pensar y pensar que algún día usted pasará por estas. Mi Dani, gracias por existir y hacerme ver que las cosas más especiales en la vida son más bien sencillas. While Colombia is my home and inspiration to write, Mississippi became my second home and greatly affected my views of life and society. The people, the music and the stories in this place helped me growing personally, hopefully today I am a better academic than I was four years ago when I came here as the city girl. Among those Mississippians, Bryan Farrell became my best friend and partner, your love and dedication greatly help me to conclude this project; your passion and intellect challenge my views and pushes me to think broader and see different perspectives. I am looking forward to sharing a life full of adventures with you. To my dear friend and colleague Heather Hanna, she took care of me and adopted me as her little sister. Your love, compassion and tenacity make you an amazing woman, professional, mother, partner, ii sister and friend. I have learned so much from you, and I am thankful I got to meet you here. To Dr. Arthur Cosby, your guidance during my PhD process was essential, you trusted me and encouraged me to move forward in my career. You inspire me to innovate and be less pessimistic. I enjoy and learn so much from our conversations. I am grateful for all the things you have done for me these years. To all those Mississippians that have treated me as one of them, thank you. To the community of Hispanics and particularly Colombians in Starkville, especially to my dear friend Sandra, thanks for all your help and support. Keep dreaming and working hard, and I am sure one day you will inspire your students to be even better than you. Finally, I want to dedicate this to my mentor, Professor Luis Fernando Maldonado (RIP). It was more than 10 years ago when I took his seminar on Theories of the State that I first felt intrigued by the impossibility of those theories to explain why places like Colombia, despite its advances, remain in a state of chaotic quiescence. Macondo as García Márquez called that unrealistic place, exists in the memory and lives of millions of individuals that despite of the tragedy, still think that Colombia is a magical place. I was never able to define what is to be a Colombian but I know I am one of them. I haven´t been able to solve the puzzle about the paradoxes of political regimes but the question keeps intriguing me and has inspired to write this dissertation. To the millions of individuals in Colombia that have suffered the consequences of the largest civil conflict in the modern world. I do what I do because I think a better world is possible. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First I want to acknowledge the role of the members of my Committee. I am honored to have this amazing group of academics reading and evaluating my work. I want to thank each one of you who participated in this project and I am looking forward to continue working and learning from each one of you. Dr. Brian Shoup, thank you for your support and encouragement. Your guidance and incredible intellect led me to develop the ideas I presented in this dissertation. Dr. Dragan Stanisevski, I am very grateful that you participated in this project, from a very different intellectual perspective than Dr. Shoup, your thoughts and words were incredibly valuable. Dr. Travis, thanks for your incredible advice and support. Dr. Leslie Hossfeld, it´s been amazing to meet and get to know you, your passion and enthusiasm are contagious. Last but not least, Dr Vasabjit Banerjee, your comments are incredible and make me think through the issues over and over. I hope we can keep having those discussions. This research was possible due to the Fulbright – Colciencias fellowship that financially supported me throughout my doctoral studies at Mississippi State University. Colciencias in Colombia has done a great job at promoting national investment in doctoral education, this dissertation is an outcome of that initiative. I hope I have the chance to give back to Colombia the opportunity that Fulbright and the government gave me, hopefully my future work will allow increasing access to higher education in Colombia. iv I would like to thank to the institutional support that I have received at