A Fair Trade Concept of Control?

STARICCO, JUAN IGNACIO

Montreal

Conferencia; ECPR General Conference; 2015

ECPR

The goal of this paper is to provide an exploration of the Fair Trade vision of the world and a critical discussion of its political implications. To do so, this paper begins with the presentation of a conceptual framework that draws on the notion of ?comprehensive concepts of control? as developed by the Amsterdam Project in International Political Economy. This concept seeks to make visible the linkages between ideology, politics and the economy, allowing to explain the different forms in which class fractions come to negotiate and impose their interests, legitimate their domination and contribute to the transformation or reproduction of hegemonic social orders. Additionally, the introduction of Gramsci?s original concept of subalternity is proposed as a form to advance the Amsterdam Project and make it more fit to account for the specificities acquired by class relations in the context of Fair Trade and agriculture. This conceptual presentation is followed by the description of the three main pillars on which the Fair Trade Concept of Control is built and an analysis of the power structures that shape it and the economic and political effects it produces. Lastly, this paper finishes with a discussion of the relations between the Fair Trade Concept of Control and the currently hegemonic global concept of control: neoliberalism.