ABSTRACT
The previous chapter examined an episode which, though largely affecting the UK, had undertones of the global governance of food production not immediately apparent on fi rst hearing. Changing geographical scales, we now turn to a case study of genetically modifi ed (GM) food1 and feed. This concerns consumption as much as it concerns production and it also offers further insights into the multi-level governance of food that may be more obvious as confl icts between national sovereignty in matters of food regulation are pitched against powerful institutional forces of trade liberalisation. The matter is one of high politics as nation states battle to hold back forces of globalization in this case by resisting technological advance. Although the crisis that this engenders ends in a formal dispute between the USA and the EU regarding the blocking of that technology, it is an important part of our thesis that these actors were more akin to allies than enemies and that the real dispute was more on of neo-functional dynamics of regional integration in Europe set against neo-realist capacities of member States in Europe.
