State regulation of agro-industries in developing countries. Governance systems in the vegetable oil industry of Malaysia and Zimbabwe

Some observers of agro-industrial development in the Third World recognize the nation state as an important locus for mediation of conflicts between different social forces but fail to analyze the regulatory mechanisms and their effect on the dynamics of particular agro-industries. This paper proposes an analytical model to study agro-industrial regulation in a national framework. The purpose is to investigate the dynamics between changing forms of state regulation and particular industry governance system in the vegetable oil industry in Malaysia and Zimbabwe. State regulation and industry governance systems differ in a number of ways between the two countries. However, in each country there is a correspondence between the dominant form of state regulation and the industrial governance system. The study confronts some of the basic assumptions within the food regime approach and stress the need to incorporate the properties of the crops in the analysis of (agro-)industry governance systems.