Food regime analysis is concerned with explaining, and therefore politicising, the strategic role of agriculture in the construction and development of the world capitalist economy.
As a framework, it takes a historical view in order to identify stable periods of capital accumulation associated with particular configurations of geopolitical power and forms of agricultural production and consumption.
With its Marxist influences, food regime theorists are also interested in how moments of crisis within a particular configuration are expressive of the dialectical tension that animates movement between such configurations (i.e. periods of transition).
Further, consolidation of a regime does not so much resolve as it does contain, or else strategically accommodate, these tensions; meanwhile, their intensification, often via the mobilisations of social movements, tends to signal a period of transition.
[citation needed] The seminal texts are as follows: Further, Philip McMichael's more recent article (2009), "A food regime genealogy",[3] provides a comprehensive overview of the development of the concept, key themes and debates, and a guide to further reading.