State politics and food alternatives in the post-socialist food regime in Czechia
本文探讨捷克后社会主义食品体制中国家政治如何影响不同类型的食品替代方案，通过专家访谈和文件分析识别出三种政治项目，分别支持“无处之食”和“此处之食”以及遵循农业生态原则的“某处之食”。
The contemporary food regime, driven by the capitalist market and nation states, is not sustainable. Different alternative food initiatives counteract its unsustainable character. Yet, what kind of food alternatives thrive in this actual market-state nexus constellation defining the food regime has become a site of contestation and depends on state politics. This article explores the role of state politics in relation to food alternatives in the post-socialist food regime in Czechia. In line with food regime approaches and drawing on critical state theory understanding of the state as a contested terrain, we use qualitative expert interviews and document analyses to identify three different political projects that support different kinds of food alternatives. Both, a liberal project driving for an international market economy and a nationalist project with its own major capital, foster food alternatives as part of “food from nowhere” in the current food regime, i.e., industrial world agriculture, and “food from here”, i.e., regional food. The alternative project builds initiatives in the sense of “food from somewhere” following agroecological principles and fostering rural development. Major conflicts are centered around the issues of agricultural subsidies favoring large-scale agricultural enterprises and transnational retail chains offering consumers in Czechia cheap and convenient food. Support from state politics is needed to make agroecological food alternatives in the sense of “food from somewhere” thrive.