Abstract
Governing through standards — rather than through laws and regulations alone — emerged as a tendency in industrialized countries in the 1980s and 1990s. This occurred against a background of the rise of idealized market paradigms in the public sector, an unfolding of new discourses concerning governmental transparency and accountability and the growing political influence of issue-focused Non Government Organizations (NGOs) (Rose, 1996; Power, 1997; Brunsson, Jacobsson et al., 2000). The tendency spans public administration, cultural life and the economy — albeit in different forms in each context, driven by different constellations of actors and circumstances. As a result, while developments in standards may still occur as a result of changes in regulation, it is more illuminating to see standards as the dominant form taken by early twenty-first century regulation.
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© 2010 Peter Gibbon and Evelyne Lazaro
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Gibbon, P., Lazaro, E. (2010). Agro-Food Standards and Africa: An Introduction. In: Gibbon, P., Ponte, S., Lazaro, E. (eds) Global Agro-Food Trade and Standards. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230281356_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230281356_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-36814-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-28135-6
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