The moral economy of grades and standards

doi:10.1016/S0743-0167(99)00061-3

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The moral economy of grades and standards

Journal Article•DOI•

The moral economy of grades and standards

Lawrence Busch¹•Institutions (1)

Michigan State University¹

01 Jul 2000-Journal of Rural Studies (Pergamon)-Vol. 16, Iss: 3, pp 273-283

TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that grades and standards are part of the moral economy of the modern world, and that they both set norms for behavior and standardize (create uniformity).

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About: This article is published in Journal of Rural Studies.The article was published on 2000-07-01. It has received 313 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Generally Accepted Auditing Standards & Standardization.

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Journal Article•DOI•

Using integrated weighted IRP-Fuzzy TISM approach towards evaluation of initiatives to harmonise Halal standards

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Mohd Imran Khan, Shahbaz Khan, Abid Haleem

22 Jan 2019-Benchmarking: An International Journal

TL;DR: In this article, a framework has been conceptualised to enable harmonisation of Halal standards which intimates to develop globally agreed protocols for Halal practices, which may positively affect the international trade of halal commodities by phasing out the discriminatory and market-impeding standards.

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Abstract: Purpose Multiplicity and conflicting Halal standards involve unnecessary repetition of testing for demonstrating the Halal integrity of the process and the product, thus making it difficult for the Halal commodities to get traction in international markets. The purpose of this paper is to suggest initiatives to facilitate harmonisation of Halal standards as to eliminate trade barrier of Halal and to assure the availability of Halal consumables to larger masses. Design/methodology/approach Ranking of the initiatives for the harmonisation of Halal standards taking in consideration the costs of accomplishment and associated benefits obtained has been done through the application of integrated Interpretive Ranking Process (IRP) and Fuzzy Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (Fuzzy TISM). This integrated methodology with the weighted criteria have refined the value of the net dominance of different variables, thereby increasing the efficacy of IRP in decision making. Findings Findings suggest that strengthening the strategic coordination and collaboration among competent HCBs is a significant initiative. This initiative needs to be undertaken to mitigate the conflict between HCBs. This necessitates to develop a common platform in making the collective decision for effectively controlling Halal businesses. Moreover, recognising competent HCBs will prompt the effective implementation and execution of Halal standards across the supply chain, and ease the global trading of Halal products. A framework has been conceptualised to enable harmonisation of Halal standards which intimates to develop globally agreed protocols for Halal practices. Practical implications The framework presented may act as a prelude to harmonise Halal standards and may positively affect the international trade of Halal commodities by phasing out the discriminatory and market-impeding standards. Originality/value A harmonised system may provide correct information to the stakeholders and may help in making an informed decision.

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24 citations

Becoming the audited : response of New Zealand sheep/beef farmers to the introduction of supermarket initiated audit schemes

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Chris Rosin, Lesley Hunt, Hugh Campbell, John Fairweather

01 Sep 2007

23 citations

Cites background from "The moral economy of grades and sta..."

...2006; Busch and Bain 2004; Le Heron 2003). Initial assessments of the impact of such standards were undertaken within the arena of international trade and the influence of WTO negotiations. In these instances, audits were perceived to act as technical barriers to trade and potentially subject to strategic, illegal protectionism (Reardon and Farina 2002; Roberts and Unnevehr 2005; Unnevehr and Jensen 1999; Willems et al. 2004). Other authors have argued that audit practices involve a more fundamental shift in definitions of quality in agri-food systems. For example, Busch (2000) argues that standards should be viewed as means of assessing the quality of products and, as such, the application of standards reflects the power relations among economic actors....
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...For example, Busch (2000) argues that standards should be viewed as means of assessing the quality of products and, as such, the application of standards reflects the power relations among economic actors....
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...2006; Busch and Bain 2004; Le Heron 2003). Initial assessments of the impact of such standards were undertaken within the arena of international trade and the influence of WTO negotiations. In these instances, audits were perceived to act as technical barriers to trade and potentially subject to strategic, illegal protectionism (Reardon and Farina 2002; Roberts and Unnevehr 2005; Unnevehr and Jensen 1999; Willems et al. 2004). Other authors have argued that audit practices involve a more fundamental shift in definitions of quality in agri-food systems. For example, Busch (2000) argues that standards should be viewed as means of assessing the quality of products and, as such, the application of standards reflects the power relations among economic actors. Those actors who are able to influence the selection of standards can often gain economic advantage and reduce their exposure to risk. While not discounting the power asymmetries inherent to standard formation, Le Heron (2003) focuses more specifically on the influence of standards on governance....
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Illusions, hunger and vices: smallholders, environmentalism and the green agrarian question in Chiapas' biofuel rush

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A. Castellanos-Navarrete

01 Jan 2015

23 citations

Cites background from "The moral economy of grades and sta..."

...supported by science, while standards can also be analysed as discursive devices shaped by and reinforcing power (Busch 2000; Ponte 2008)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Supermarkets and private standards: unintended consequences of the audit ritual

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Stephen S. Davey¹, Carol Richards¹•Institutions (1)

University of Queensland¹

04 Feb 2013-Agriculture and Human Values

TL;DR: In a case study of the Australian retail supermarket duopoly and the proprietary standards required for market access, this article foregrounded retailers as standard owners and their role in third-party auditing and certification.

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Abstract: Recent scholarship has considered the implications of the rise of voluntary private standards in food and the role of private actors in a rapidly evolving, de-facto ‘mandatory’ sphere of governance. Standards are an important element of this globalising private sphere, but are an element that has been relatively peripheral in analyses of power in agri-food systems. Sociological thought has countered orthodox views of standards as simple tools of measurement, instead understanding their function as a governance mechanism that transforms many things, and people, during processes of standardisation. In a case study of the Australian retail supermarket duopoly and the proprietary standards required for market access this paper foregrounds retailers as standard owners and their role in third-party auditing and certification. Interview data from primary research into Australia’s food standards captures the multifaceted role supermarkets play as standard-owners, who are found to impinge on the independence of third-party certification while enforcing rigorous audit practices. We show how standard owners, in attempting to standardize the audit process, generate tensions within certification practices in a unique example of ritualism around audit. In examining standards to understand power in contemporary food governance, it is shown that retailers are drawn beyond standard-setting into certification and enforcement, that is characterized by a web of institutions and actors whose power to influence outcomes is uneven.

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23 citations

Cites background from "The moral economy of grades and sta..."

...However, in testing for this independence, Hatanaka and Busch (2008) observe that while organisational independence can largely be claimed, operationally, third-party auditing is embedded in, and mediated by social, political and economic networks....
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...The array of standards used in Australian retail chains reflects Busch’s (2011a) observation regarding the existence of a cacophony of private standards....
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...In the following sections we summarize the scholarly literature that has made inroads into untangling the complex and messy governance of private standards—or what Busch (2011a) has termed a ‘cacophony of governance’....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Systemic Constraints to Ecological Well‐Being: The Case of the 1985 Food Security Act1

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Leland L. Glenna¹•Institutions (1)

Cornell University¹

22 Oct 2009-Rural Sociology

TL;DR: In this paper, a theory is used that asserts that the state's systemic commitment to promoting capitalist growth constrains it from establishing and implementing policies that accomplish anything more than displacing one environmental problem onto others.

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Abstract: Although the conservation title of the 1985 Food Security Act was hailed by many as revolutionary in its attempts to control soil erosion, it has failed to live up to its billing. A theory is used that asserts that the state's systemic commitment to promoting capitalist growth constrains it from establishing and implementing policies that accomplish anything more than displacing one environmental problem onto others. The theory is tested through a discourse analysis of the hearings surrounding the Federal government's attempt to control soil erosion through the 1985 Food Security Act, which revealed that policy recommendations challenging the drive to maximize efficiency and production were declared flawed and unacceptable. Hence, the hearings were systematically distorted in favor of the dominant instrumental rationality. It is concluded that government policy initiatives alone are insufficient and that creating alternative social organizations of production is necessary to promote ecological well-being.

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22 citations

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References

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Journal Article•DOI•

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

[...]

Robert D'Amico

20 Jun 1978-Telos

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present La Volonté de Savoir, the methodological introduction of a projected five-volume history of sexuality, which seems to have a special fascination for Foucault: the gradual emergence of medicine as an institution, the birth of political economy, demography and linguistics as human sciences, the invention of incarceration and confinement for the control of the "other" in society (the mad, the libertine, the criminal) and that special violence that lurks beneath the power to control discourse.

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Abstract: This writer who has warned us of the “ideological” function of both the oeuvre and the author as unquestioned forms of discursive organization has gone quite far in constituting for both these “fictitious unities” the name (with all the problems of such a designation) Michel Foucault. One text under review, La Volonté de Savoir, is the methodological introduction of a projected five-volume history of sexuality. It will apparently circle back over that material which seems to have a special fascination for Foucault: the gradual emergence of medicine as an institution, the birth of political economy, demography and linguistics as “human sciences,” the invention of incarceration and confinement for the control of the “other” in society (the mad, the libertine, the criminal) and that special violence that lurks beneath the power to control discourse.

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15,794 citations

"The moral economy of grades and sta..." refers background in this paper

...As Foucault (1977) has suggested, some, perhaps most, of these relations of power are benign....
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Book•

We Have Never Been Modern

[...]

Bruno Latour

01 Jan 1991

TL;DR: This article argued that we are modern as long as we split our political process in two - between politics proper, and science and technology, which allowed the formidable expansion of the Western empires.

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Abstract: What makes us modern? This is a classic question in philosophy as well as in political science. However it is often raised without including science and technology in its definition. The argument of this book is that we are modern as long as we split our political process in two - between politics proper, and science and technology. This division allows the formidable expansion of the Western empires. However it has become more and more difficult to maintain this distance between science and politics. Hence the postmodern predicament - the feeling that the modern stance is no longer acceptable but that there is no alternative. The solution, advances one of France's leading sociologists of science, is to realize that we have never been modern to begin with. The comparative anthropology this text provides reintroduces science to the fabric of daily life and aims to make us compatible both with our past and with other cultures wrongly called pre-modern.

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8,858 citations

"The moral economy of grades and sta..." refers background in this paper

...On the one hand, the social studies of science has been much in#uenced through the Actor Network Theory developed by Latour (1987, 1993) and Callon (Callon, 1991; Callon and Latour, 1992; Callon et al., 1986) among others (e.g., Law, 1994)....
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Book•

Science in action : how to follow scientists and engineers through society

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Bruno Latour

01 Jan 1987

TL;DR: In this article, the quandary of the fact-builder is explored in the context of science and technology in a laboratory setting, and the model of diffusion versus translation is discussed.

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Abstract: Acknowledgements Introduction Opening Pandora's Black Box PART I FROM WEARER TO STRONGER RHETORIC Chapter I Literature Part A: Controversies Part B: When controversies flare up the literature becomes technical Part C: Writing texts that withstand the assaults of a hostile environment Conclusion: Numbers, more numbers Chapter 2 Laboratories Part A: From texts to things: A showdown Part B: Building up counter-laboratories Part C: Appealing (to) nature PART II FROM WEAR POINTS TO STRONGHOLDS Chapter 3 Machines Introduction: The quandary of the fact-builder Part A: Translating interests Part B: Keeping the interested groups in line Part C: The model of diffusion versus the model of translation Chapter 4 Insiders Out Part A: Interesting others in the laboratories Part B: Counting allies and resources PART III FROM SHORT TO LONGER NETWORKS Chapter 5 Tribunals of Reason Part A: The trials of rationality Part B: Sociologics Part C: Who needs hard facts? Chapter 6 Centres of calculation Prologue: The domestication of the savage mind Part A: Action at a distance Part B: Centres of calculation Part C: Metrologies Appendix 1

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8,173 citations

Book•

Capitalism and Freedom

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Milton Friedman

01 Jan 1962

TL;DR: In the classic bestseller, Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman presents his view of the proper role of competitive capitalism as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom as mentioned in this paper.

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Abstract: In the classic bestseller, Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman presents his view of the proper role of competitive capitalism--the organization of economic activity through private enterprise operating in a free market--as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. Beginning with a discussion of principles of a liberal society, Friedman applies them to such constantly pressing problems as monetary policy, discrimination, education, income distribution, welfare, and poverty. "Milton Friedman is one of the nation's outstanding economists, distinguished for remarkable analytical powers and technical virtuosity. He is unfailingly enlightening, independent, courageous, penetrating, and above all, stimulating."-Henry Hazlitt, Newsweek "It is a rare professor who greatly alters the thinking of his professional colleagues. It's an even rarer one who helps transform the world. Friedman has done both."-Stephen Chapman, Chicago Tribune

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7,026 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Science in action : How to follow scientists and engineers through society

[...]

Wiebe E. Bijker, Bruno Latour

01 Jan 1988-Technology and Culture

6,926 citations

"The moral economy of grades and sta..." refers background in this paper

...On the one hand, the social studies of science has been much in#uenced through the Actor Network Theory developed by Latour (1987, 1993) and Callon (Callon, 1991; Callon and Latour, 1992; Callon et al., 1986) among others (e.g., Law, 1994)....
[...]
...…of Edmund Stone: Mathematical Instruments are the means by which those noble sciences, geometry and philosophy, are render'd 8As both Rouse (1987) and Latour (1987) have noted, the illusion of universality is constructed by a set of speci"c events and actions that are always local in character....
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