Behind the Scenes of Quality Labels: Tripartite Regulation and Layered Markets: From the Europeanization to the Globalization of Organic Agriculture

• Published in: Revue française de sociologie (English Edition) 2017-09, Vol.58 (3), p.1-26
• Main Authors: Fouilleux, Eve, Loconto, Allison
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2271-7641

This article focuses on the modes of governing through the tripartite standards regime. This form of regulation combining voluntary standards, certification, and accreditation is increasingly used in many areas of economic activity. We draw upon the case of organic farming where accredited third-party certification has been imposed by the European Union since the 1990s. We show that this form of regulation is in fact facilitated by a layering of multiple markets, which have specific characteristics and effects. The market for organic products is closely intertwined with three markets for services (the markets for standards, certification, and accreditation), whose competitive dynamics explain the path toward Europeanization, and then globalization, taken by the sector. We point out the limits of this mode of regulation, in which the regulated party pays the regulator, and in which the bulk of costs and the burden of regulation fall on farmers. These limits have generated increasing criticism from within the organic agriculture movement, with some actors proposing a return to the non-market, participatory forms of regulation devised by its original activists.