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Abstract

Recurrent food price crises, coupled with the steady deterioration of world food security over the past two decades, have prompted efforts to reform the global governance of food security. This article argues that diverging rules and norms across the elemental regimes of agriculture and food, international trade, and human rights over the appropriate role of states and markets in addressing food insecurity are a major source of transnational political conflict. It analyzes (1) the role of norms in the construction of the international food security regime; (2) the transition from an international food security regime to a regime complex for food security; and (3) rule and norm conflicts within this regime complex. It concludes with a discussion of the impacts of diverging norms on the politics of regime complexity and its policy implications for current efforts to reform the global governance of food security.