Palm | Kelapa Sawit

ABSTRACT: The private governance of food safety and quality is neglected in contemporary discussions relating to governance beyond the state. This sphere presents an interesting case for analysis given the current multiple occupation of steering space which was traditionally perceived to be the exclusive property of the state.

This paper addresses a triad of puzzles traced by the empirical case of GlobalGAP and etched in the extant literature concerning novel forms of non-state governance. These puzzles pose the following questions: How and why do sites of non-state governance emerge (the puzzle of emergence)? How should such sites be viewed (the puzzle of conceptualisation)? How can such sites be legitimate and what effect does legitimation have on their development (the puzzle of legitimation)? This paper concludes that GlobalGAP offers a critical case for the future research of governance beyond the state which has proliferated in the wake of neoliberalism.