Green Governance and Structural Oppression in Global Agricultural Supply Chains: The NorthSouth Divide

Drawing on existing literature, this paper conducts a critical analysis of ESG standards in global agricultural supply chains and its impact on producers in the Global South. It develops a multi-level and cross-theoretical analytical framework to address the limitations of current studies, which have more focused on macro-level governance while neglecting cross-level perspectives that explain how institutional pressures are transmitted and how producers respond. At the macro level, the World Society Theory is used to reveal how ESG standards shape discursive and resource allocation power within transnational governance networks, explaining their global diffusion, legitimization, and the consequent establishment of market access standards and asymmetrical discursive authority. At the meso level, the New Institutionalism is used to illuminate the mechanisms through which coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures are transmitted along supply chains. At the micro level, the Theory of Planned Behavior explains why producers in the Global South, constrained by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, tend to adopt symbolic compliance rather than substantive transformation. The findings suggest that ESG certification, originally designed as a 'universal tool to promote sustainability, has gradually evolved into an institutionalized pressure: under conditions of resource and capacity constraints, the compliance practices of Southern producers resemble symbolic performances, reflecting the structural oppression embedded in green governance.