Global scripts for local policies: Front-of-pack nutrition labeling in Latin America

Abstract

This article examines the remarkable similarity and near-simultaneity of the front-of-pack nutrition labeling regulations adopted across Latin America over the past two decades. Drawing on the world society theory, we argue that this convergence cannot be adequately explained as the outcome of endogenous responses to local problems or as a contingent alignment of national policy processes. Instead, we show that the measures enacted share a common problematizing framework. We conceptualize it as a global script elaborated in a diffuse arena comprising epistemic communities, intergovernmental organizations, and international nongovernmental organizations and enacted across national contexts with high degrees of formal isomorphism. The article contributes to the world society theory by illustrating how global scripts operate in a regional policy domain.