Neo-Liberalism, the WTO and New Modes of Agri- environmental Governance in the European Union, the USA and Australia

Neo-liberalism in agricultural policy has exhibited a growing presence in the ‘new global economy’ (Coleman et al. 2004), pursuing an agenda that seeks to
dismantle the welfare components of established ‘national’ policies and to reconstruct in their stead a new ‘post-Fordist’ accumulation dynamic and novel structures of governance simultaneously at regional and global levels. The World Trade Organsation (WTO) constitutes a key site for the re-regulation of international governance in favour of neo-liberalism, a process in which state interventionism to underwrite agricultural production and environmental and social protection is deemed increasingly inadmissible where market ‘distortion’ is implied. Nevertheless, implantation of neo-liberalism in agricultural policy exhibits considerable unevenness
between states, being characterised by varying levels of accommodation and
resistance. States appear to be seeking selective accumulation opportunities through liberalisation whilst simultaneously, and in varying degrees, striving to sustain some level of agricultural and socio-environmental ‘exceptionalism’ in policy, often manifested in new modes of agri-environmental governance.