Beyond the Shadow State: The Public–Private Food Assistance System as Networked Governance

The public–private food assistance system (PPFAS) emerged during the 1970s to address “emergency” food needs and has since grown into a regularized social welfare system of grocery and meal provision and related program delivery, realized through the collective efforts of organizations and individuals. We explore the context, history, and organization of the PPFAS to better understand how and why public and private actors work together to provide for the social welfare of poor people. We find that the PPFAS is organized as a multiactor, multiscalar network within which the relations between state, market, and civil society are continuously negotiated. The PPFAS may seem like the quintessential example of privatized governance with its attendant movement of decision making outside of the public sphere Rather than consider the PPFAS as a neoliberal fait accompli, we view the PPFAS as a site of contestation about how social welfare and, more broadly, democratic governance is organized.