Policy Exceptionalism: analysis of ideational framework governing agricultural sector in Lithuania

Abstract

After WWII, the agricultural sector emerged as an area of exception in western democracies and is often characterised by sector-specific policies, compartmentalised institutions, well-organised interests’ groups and ideas explaining why this sector cannot be governed by free-market forces. Nevertheless, over the last three decades, the sector has been reformed to incorporate neoliberal and environmental demands to a certain extent. Hence, the current agricultural regime consists of two competing discourses – policy exceptionalism versus post-exceptionalism. The study analyses this ideational struggle in the context of Lithuania. The study conducts interpretative discourse analysis of a site of discursive contestation, namely parliamentary debates over policy changes, which sparked farmers’ unrest in Autumn, 2019. It is argued that policy exceptionalism is a dominant discourse governing Lithuanian agricultural sector and that it is maintained by the ruling party. Furthermore, it serves as a discursive barrier to the incorporation of environmental concerns into the agricultural policy-making process.