International Political Economy, the National Food Security of South Korea and the Governance of Global Agriculture in the Post-Doha Era

The impasse of the Doha Round is caused fundamentally by the complexity of crafting trade rules that can encompass diverse agricultural problems across countries. The article presents the particular problem of Korean agriculture that is torn between ever-dwindling domestic production and the need to cultivate a socially desirable level of domestic production. In an effort to assess the current international relations in agriculture and identify the way out of the current gridlock, the article uses International Political Economy (IPE) theories and puts forward two propositions: (i) economic liberalism is not adequate for explaining today’s international relations in agriculture, and (ii) the realists’ perspective provides a pertinent way of understanding the controversies surrounding agricultural trade. Further, the article advances the hypothesis that the global food system is undergoing a process of bifurcating into two distinct spheres: production agriculture (governed by states) and downstream agribusiness sectors (governed by transnational corporations).