The Social Construction of Food Security: The Israeli Case

Shoshanna Griver () and Itay Fischhendler ()
Additional contact information
Shoshanna Griver: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Itay Fischhendler: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, 2021, vol. 13, issue 5, No 15, 1303-1321

Abstract: Abstract ” Food securitization” refers to the process by which food supplies are linked to larger security issues or broader notions of human security. While this study is built on the surge of food policy studies that acknowledge the importance of discourse, rhetoric, and labeling in shaping the notion of security there is no empirical research that explicitly examine how securitization process of food policy takes place, why, when and the implications of this. The aim of the study was to examine the contextual events that triggered the securitization of food policy: the actors who used food security rhetoric, and the institutional measures they suggested for solving food insecurity. By taking a discursive approach, the study quantitatively examined how and why food was securitized during debates on Israeli food policy took place during two time periods: 1948–1950, the years of the implementation of the austerity laws; and 2008–2017, the years of global recession, and the rise of obesity. The study found that the notion of food security was strategically used to define a variety of food-related issues. Each definition of food security was triggered by a variety of events and social contexts such as war, increases in the cost of living, the rise in obesity rates, and global warming. These frames, used throughout the debates, then influenced the actor’s choice of solutions. The study shows that most Israeli actors reacted to food security frames using institutional welfare measures.

Keywords: Food Security; Securitization; Political Discourse; Food; Food Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12571-021-01169-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ssefpa:v:13:y:2021:i:5:d:10.1007_s12571-021-01169-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ulture/journal/12571

DOI: 10.1007/s12571-021-01169-5

Access Statistics for this article

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food is currently edited by R.N. Strange

More articles in Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food from Springer, The International Society for Plant Pathology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().