Placing the state in the contemporary food regime: uneven regulatory development in the Dominican Republic

This paper interrogates the role of the state in the contemporary food regime and argues that it is best understood as the outcome of uneven regulatory development. This concept centers the ways that legacy institutions and practices of previous food regimes persist and combine with neoliberal regulation. It is developed through an in-depth case study of agro-food regulation in the Dominican Republic, focusing on domestic rice production. The analysis speaks to the possibilities and limits of progressive food sovereignty politics in contexts where states simultaneously undermine socially transformative demands and mitigate some pernicious effects of hyper-marketization to secure state legitimacy.