Quickening the zombie state – governmentalities, statecraft and food governance in Cape Town

Abstract

In a recent surge of statecraft in the Cape Town city-region, officials negotiated a complex state terrain to realign institutions and policies governing food. This happened in a context where multiple governmental rationalities converged to create an ambiguous governance terrain that undermined the capacity for coordinated and decisive action. Our analysis of secondary literature, policy documents and interviews with officials reveals how they exploited shifts in this fraught topology of governmental reason. The notion of the ‘zombie state’ was articulated by officials to express an internal critique of the disabling design features of city-region government. Strategic discourse pursuing resilience established novel institutions and cultivated informal networks of influence. These transformations enabled creative thinking to inform innovative statecraft. This may galvanise the zombie state to govern food systems in the interests of the vulnerable. Our findings trouble totalising readings of Foucauldian power-knowledge which preclude agency and innovative political action to promote population wellbeing