From farm to force : how the 2023–2024 agricultural protests reversed the post-exceptionalist common agricultural policy

Lovec, Marko (author)

The EU-wide agricultural protests in 2023–2024 have highlighted the systemic challenges of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), but have only served to block the agenda for the environmental transformation of agriculture. Building on the literature on popular movements and the (post-) exceptionalist CAP, this article argues that the outcome was shaped not only by the co-optation of regressive populism by established actors, but also by a conservative framework of representative and decision-making institutions that locks in (traditional) agricultural interests.

• Language: English
• Keywords: regressive populism, post-exceptionalism, European Union, common agricultural policy, farm protests, decision-making
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Geographic coverage: Države Evropske unije
• Time coverage: 2023-2024
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 13.02.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 1-23
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-179436
• UDC: 316.485.22:63"2023/2024"(4)
• ISSN on article: 0306-6150
• DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2026.2617429
• COBISS.SI-ID: 268414211
• Publication date in RUL: 13.02.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: The Journal of peasant studies
• Shortened title: J. peasant stud.
• Publisher: F. Cass & Co.
• ISSN: 0306-6150
• COBISS.SI-ID: 513358361

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.