Conference Agenda

The EU’s agri-food sector both drives and remains vulnerable to environmental risks. Despite increasing calls for greening, EU agri-food policies continue to prioritise the interests of agricultural policy elites, such as farmer associations. However, the strategies these elites employ to resist much-needed reform remain underexplored. While the existence of closed policy networks is well-documented in (post-)exceptionalism scholarship, less is known about how policy elites obstruct or resist reform. Drawing on politicisation literature, we contend that protest-related discourse can amplify politicisation to a level where reform opportunities shrink, effectively blocking change. Using Discourse Network Analysis of Euractiv articles, we examine protest-related discourse on sustainable agriculture during a period of reform momentum (2018-September 2024). Our preliminary findings reveal a steady increase in politicisation, which only subsided after the 2024 European Parliamentary elections. A turning point in 2022-2023 saw agricultural policy elites frame sustainability as a threat to food security, escalating discourse polarisation and right-wing actors infiltrating protests. This marginalised environmental reform efforts and legitimised the rollback, weakening, and withdrawal of greening initiatives. By heightening politicisation, policy elites reinforced exceptionalist legacies and productionist interests, keeping policy networks closed and obstructing sustainability reforms.