Agricultural governance in the Anthropocene

The chapter connects findings from (critical) constructivist International Relations (IR) research with recent theoretical works on environmental governance and politics in the Anthropocene. It conceives the Anthropocene as a social construction. The key argument is that conceiving the Anthropocene as a social construction requires more nuanced conceptions of agency, norms and technological innovations. The empirical focus of the chapter is on global agricultural production and governance. The chapter starts with discussing the material implications of the rise of anthropogenic agricultural systems in the history of the Anthropocene. The chapter then outlines a constructivist research agenda including three main dimensions and related areas for future research. The dimension of agency deals with the material and normative embeddedness of norm entrepreneurship in the Anthropocene and discusses who is conceived as an agent in charge of governing agricultural systems and why. The dimension of norms highlights the (conflictive) normative foundations and interpretations of societal problems in the agri-food system in the Anthropocene. The dimension of technological innovations discusses the rise of transformative technologies in light of normative debates about agricultural governance in the Anthropocene. Finally, the chapter draws conclusions and discusses potential contributions of constructivist IR research to the Anthropocene debate.