Regulating Food Risks: Rebuilding Confidence in Europe's Food?

Abstract

How can contemporary governments and regulation respond effectively to the growth of food risks at the same time as encouraging the further economic development of the European internal market? Taking the case of European food regulation during the ‘post-BSE’ period, this paper explores the changing dynamics of food regulation and accountability, and the interplay of influences that are shaping the new regulatory terrain. In examining three critical dimensions of change: (1) the maturing Europeanisation of UK policy; (2) the consumerisation and new institutionalisation of food policy and the wider participation of interest groups; and (3) the development of a more complex private-interest model of food regulation; the paper outlines a new conceptual model of contested regulation which incorporates the state, corporate and noncorporate private interests, consumers, and a variety of other social interests.