Why policies fail
The global narrative is shifting towards sustainability transitions, which reflects a collective recognition of the sustainability challenges and the need for systemic change. The incumbent industrial agricultural system stands at the centre of many sustainability challenges and must undergo a fundamental transition. However, growing evidence shows that current agricultural policies and established governance approaches are unable to bring transformative change. This thesis investigates why policies often fail to drive transitions towards strong sustainability in the agricultural sectors of the EU and China. Policy failure is approached both as a normative judgment, grounded in critical scholarship, and as an analytical lens to investigate transitions embedded in real-world policymaking and governance practices.
This thesis employs a dual-paradigmatic framework that bridges two emerging schools of transition research: the socio-ecological transition perspective, informed by degrowth scholarship, and the socio-technical transition perspective, grounded in systems thinking. Drawing on key concepts from both paradigms, the thesis conceptualises four transition dynamics: degrowth, regrouping, destabilisation, and re-localisation, as entry points for identifying and explaining policy failures.
Findings show that policy discourses, governance structures, and political resistance have reinforced the incumbent agricultural system while constraining transformative pathways in the EU and China. Key transition dynamics are either marginalised in policy discourses and policy agendas, or they fail to materialise in actual governance practices and political decision-making. This reveals a fundamental misalignment: the values and structures guiding policymaking continue to reinforce growth-oriented goals, instead of fostering strong sustainability in the sector.