Participation for just governance of food-system transition

Abstract

Sustainability transitions governance needs to be inclusive and participatory and the question of justice is crucial for making effective and acceptable changes possible. But how do we ensure adequate participation in governance processes and enable reconciliation between competing goals in relation to sustainability transitions? Transition management highlights the need for participatory and reflexive governance processes to enable sustainability transitions. However, due to participant selection and limitations in chosen approaches, deliberative and participatory forums may have difficulties ensuring justice and legitimacy. A systemic and practice-oriented perspective on deliberation points to the need to widen deliberative activities and analysis on multiple sites, but the connection to transition governance and justice remains weak. In the context of food systems, various movements and networks, such as alternative food networks, food-policy councils, and food-sovereignty movements, work to create a more just and sustainable food system. They form an interesting manifestation for participation in just food governance and can provide new ideas for the development of more equitable governance practices. We analyze studies on civil society participation in food-system transitions to develop understanding of how to improve just transition governance. Based on this investigation, more just sustainability transition governance requires systemic and reflexive deliberation that is also capable of accounting for the role of social movements. There furthermore is a need for institutional arrangements to support this kind of decision making.