Standards and Regulatory Capitalism: The Diffusion of Food Safety Standards in Developing Countries

Diahanna L. Post
Additional contact information
Diahanna L. Post: Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and University of California, Berkeley

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2005, vol. 598, issue 1, 168-183

Abstract: Public health is a major area of social regulation, tied closely to the rise of the regulatory state. Among public health standards, food safety standards were some of the first to be globalized, through the Codex Alimentarius Commission established in 1963. With the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), these international food safety standards have taken on even greater importance, serving as a reference point for the WTO in resolving disputes between countries over trade barriers. Have these international food safety standards influenced domestic policies and, if so, in which directions and why? This article considers how the Codex food additive standard has influenced policy in Argentina and the Dominican Republic. It looks at the role and interaction of international, regional, and domestic actors and top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal directions of policy diffusion. It also examines the role played by powerful states in shaping international standards.

Keywords: globalization; governance; public health; trade; regulation; standards (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716204271565 (text/html)

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:sae:anname:v:598:y:2005:i:1:p:168-183

DOI: 10.1177/0002716204271565

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().