Analytical framework

The objectives of this section are to clarify the analytical framework guided by and to explaining different concepts such as policy context, the degree of convergence and direction of convergence.

Policy convergence stems from diverse interpretations that rely on multidimensional perspectives which embrace political, sociological, economical phenomena. Among definitions that reached common grounds on public policy literature is the one ofKerr (1983, p. 3)which,

a later interpretation of convergence,Bennett (1991)defined five possible features that explain the concept of convergence:

i. Policy goals which embrace the willingness to address common policy problems;

ii. Policy content

i.e. official mechanism such as regulations, normalisation, legal documents, etc.;

iii. Policy instruments

iv. Policy outcomes that deals with the impact or consequences, the result

v. Policy style

Alternatively, due to the complex characteristic of public policy, convergence has been interpreted across different levels: macro and micro-perspectives to explain how it occurs(Bennett, 1991). Alongside with the development of industrialisation, not only had the industrial countries are facing common policy problems but also the eagerness to go beyond borders unfolds the driving forces of convergence. Therefore, at the macro-level, convergence accounts for a range of social and economic forces produced by industrialisation(Bennett, 1991). At the micro-level, the analysis of policy convergence takes upon case studies which enable to draw unique features that vary from country to country or from a given unit of analysis. Besides, there are many

discrepancies about the sources Drezner (2001)

e e postulates that society has an influence on the convergence and emphasises the fact whether convergence occurs because of the primacy of structural forces or because of the pressures exerted by autonomous agents.

The former highlights the s

dependent variable that implies that different national policies are homogenised into a global policy. The latter puts forth the

agent-(Drezner, 2001)

organisation of the different elements of a complex body or activity so as to enable them (OED, 2013).

One critique of the previous study on policy convergence is the perspective from which it has been conducted, i.e. a focus on industrialised countries and their similar problems. However, policy convergence can also be extended to different context across time and space especially, when applied to the framework of global food security and the policy responses devised for it. Particularly, at a very micro-level where policy inconsistencies exist, as it is the case for the missing linkages in agriculture with the other sectors of the economy and the external approaches that seek to fix it. Hence, by

coordinated for a very specific goal.

It is also important to mention that the scope of this chapter is not about the analysis of the cause of policy convergence, but rather on the application of the theoretical analysis to specific case related to agriculture and food security at sectoral and territorial levels and their potential connection to the global policy initiative.

Furthermore, as policy interpretation may differ from the angle it is perceived, this chapter will be mainly discussed from the perspective of SSA countries. Therefore, as a

conceptual framework, this chapter will try to -driven

through three elements:

Policy context and the scope of convergence: It is importantto clarify the context of policy, the relevant elements that give impulse to countries and institutions to elaborate harmonised policies. In this case, the context is referred to as the main target towards which all actors are heading to. Agriculture finally got attention from the global society, yet the solutions to feed the nine billion populations still divide ideas. On the one hand, mainstream economists are advocating market solutions and private sector-led initiative. On the other hand, rural sociologists and anthropologists defend the importance of the peasantry. Taking a different

perspective, this study approaches the policy context of African countries according to the three arrows: the upward type, indicating a positive relation between land productivity and the share of employment in the rural area; the straight type, representing stagnating land productivity; the declining type, representing the decline of the share of employment in agriculture over time.

The main goal pursued in this case is to increase the productive and absorptive

capacity, -being by removing all the obstacles that

cause inadequate access to food and to build a sustainable agriculture and food system alongside sectoral linkages. This choice is justified by the fact that most African countries have not yet reached their potential in terms of maximum achievable yield amid a great potential relative to large agricultural land and disconnected leading sectors.

Degree of policy as mentioned by(Holzinger, Knill and Arts, 2008, p. 31)some distinctions should be made between policy outputs adopted by the governments and policy outcomes, i.e. the actual effect of policy in terms of achievable goals. To this extent, policy outputs will be directed to the analysis of the achievement of some SSA countries based onresults of leading-following relations.

Direction of policies according to Holzinger and Knill (2005), the direction of convergence consists of the upward or downward movement of policies across time. This exercise has been explored, through the orbit analysis revealed the leading-following relations which enabled to draw some patterns across the studied countries namely, the driving forces and enabling forces. However, as these patterns are not connected together to reach the policy goals of increasing the productive and absorptive capacity, policy interfaces needed are the next element to be identified.

Policy interfaces can be described as the common ground where similar elements of policies are identical yet may differ in terms of content, instrument and style. In this manner, policy interfaces are therefore the linkages between two common spaces where policies are evolving together.

After this brief clarification, the following section is focusing on identifying interfaces for countries in SSA. In this chapter, we categorise interface into three groups: rural, urban, global interfaces which take into consideration the four elements: productive capacity, absorptive capacity, driving forces and enabling forces.

After a brief description of the analytical framework of this document, the purpose of this section is to identify policy interfaces with respect to agriculture and other sectors of the economy as a result of the previous analyses.