Democratic food governance capacity at the local level: the cases of Livorno and Pisa

ABSTRACT

The democratization of food governance is considered to be one way of challenging the crisis in the global food system. Local governments have recently emerged as prominent actors in food governance. Despite the increasing interest and action from local institutions, in most countries local food policies are far from being adopted by local governments as systematic policy. This paper explores the democratic local food governance capacity model as both an analytical and normative framework aimed at supporting local governments to set up democratic local food governance architectures based on urban food strategies and food policy councils. The model is used to analyse the Italian case studies of the Municipality of Livorno and the Province of Pisa in order to identify insights and policy recommendations for local governments. The analysis reveals how the construction of local democratic food governance systems is conditioned by multiple factors related to the structural, procedural and socio-cultural support, which also influence the implementation of democratic food governance.

KEYWORDS:

• food democracy
• deliberative and participatory democracy
• food governance
• food policy
• local and urban food strategies
• food councils
• food governance capacity

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Giaime Berti became the President of the Food Council of Livorno after the end of the SALUTE project.

Notes

1 The Municipality of Livorno numbers 157,823 residents (2019).

2 The Giunta Comunale (municipal council) is the executive body of the municipal government and includes the mayor, the deputy-mayor and the assessors appointed by the mayor. The Consiglio Comunale (city council) is the legislative body. It is elected by citizens.

3 The Consulta Comunale is an ad hoc consultative body that acts as a forum for the discussion of specific issues that can be established by local government to ensure citizen and/or stakeholder direct involvement in political discussions.

4 Since the Giunta Comunale has no institutional power to modify the statute or to create a Consulta Comunale, it made the commitment to put them forward for consideration by the Consiglio Comunale, the local government's legislative body.

5 The Province of Pisa covers an area of 2444 km² and has 419,037 residents (2019). It includes 37 municipalities. The capital of the province is Pisa, a university town of about 90,000 residents (140,000 including students).

6 In Italy, the provincial executive body comprises the president, deputy-president and the assessors who are political responsible of different departments.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Autorità per la garanzia e la promozione della partecipazione [grant number Deliberazione APP N. 28 – 24.10.2016].