The institutionalization of food sovereignty: the case of Nicaragua's law of food and nutritional sovereignty and security

This dissertation considers the process by which national food sovereignty policies are formulated, negotiated, and approved with the aim of determining the extent to which food sovereignty is conceptually institutionalized in these policies and identifying the factors that either advanced or challenged its inclusion. It contributes to broadening the scholarship on the development of national food sovereignty movements and the policy-making process of food security and right-to-food legislation that includes the concept of food sovereignty. Using the approach of qualitative, single-case study analysis grounded in constructivist approaches to inquiry, the case of Nicaragua’s Law 693, the Law of Food and Nutritional Sovereignty and Security, was examined. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and selected documents pertaining to food sovereignty and Law 693, and to a lesser extent, participant observation. The methods used to analyze the collected data included process-tracing and discourse analysis. Narratives detailing the historical emergence of food sovereignty and the accompanying movement for its adoption and the micro-processes comprising the policy-making process were constructed from the collected data. An analysis of these processes and its final outcomes revealed that the policy-making process was deeply complex and contentious, and the extent to which the food sovereignty concept and framework were reflected in the law was highly debated by stakeholders who participated in the policy-making process. Among the key loci of the debate were diverging interpretations over the nature of food sovereignty coupled with competing discourses of how best to achieve food security and guarantee the right to food. Using an analytical framework constructed from the existing yet nascent literature on food sovereignty institutionalization and comprised of four categories of factors, data from the study revealed that a complex range of factors affect the extent to which food sovereignty is institutionalized into national food security and right-to-food legislation.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Wendy Gode