Understanding Complex Governance Relationships in Food Safety Regulation

In this article, we discuss the value of the RIT model for analyzing complex governance relationships in the regulation of food safety. By exploring food safety regimes involving the European Union and the Global Food Safety Initiative, we highlight the diverse and complex relationships between the actors in public, private, and hybrid regimes of food safety regulation. We extend the basic RIT model to better fit the reality of (hybrid) governance relationships in the modern regulation of food safety, arguing that the model enables disaggregation of these regimes into analytical subunits or “regulatory chains,” in which each actor contributes to and affects the regulatory process. Finally, we critically assess what the RIT model adds to alternative theoretical approaches in identifying, mapping, and explaining the different roles that actors play vis-à-vis others in regulatory regimes.