Food regime transformations and structural rebounding: Brazilian state–agribusiness relations

The study analyses how food regime transformations in the late 20th century led to a profound restructuring of state–agribusiness relations in Brazil and the definition of a joint international strategy. The global food regime is conceptualized through the notion of a historical structure, and its process of change analysed within material, institutional and ideational dimensions. Reorganization of the Brazilian agricultural sector has spurred close cooperation between public institutions and private actors in order to influence international spheres of agricultural regulatory formation. The study analyses the public–private engagement within the institutional dimension of the global food regime through the analysis of these actors’ participation in three cases of international decision-making processes. A general process of ‘structural rebounding’ is identified, whereby food regime transformations have engendered a configuration of state–business relations, which eventually propelled an agential strategy that affected the processes of the regime’s reproduction.