Realigning state-farmer relations in agricultural post-exceptionalism: Direct payment implementation in the Common Agricultural Policy post-2022 in Germany

Agricultural policies in OECD countries, which had treated farming as an exceptional sector that needs and deserves extensive state support, have been partially transformed by liberal and multi-functionalist influences since the mid-1980s. The ensuing post-exceptionalist policy arrangements entail significant tensions between old and new ideas, institutions, instruments, and interests. Related changes in relationships between the state and farmers, however, have rarely been analysed. To address this gap, this paper examines state-farmer relations in the implementation of direct payments in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2022, using Germany and the policy instrument that absorbs 75% of the CAP budget as a case. Based on the political sociology approach to policy instruments, we develop a framework to reconstruct the problematizations, subject constitution and modes of coordination underlying policy instruments along three levels of observation: instruments as institutions, techniques and micro-devices. An analysis of policy documents, legislative texts and policy artefacts finds that the differentiation of several direct payment components implies contradictory problematizations at instrument level: farm income, payment distribution, and remuneration of public goods. The techniques and micro-devices used to implement direct payments problematize eligibility and compliance with behavioural requirements. Hence, farmers are effectively constituted as dependent, only conditionally deserving beneficiaries and potential deviants. The non-hierarchical modes of coordination implied in transfer payments are overlaid by hierarchical modes involved in the setting of categorical and behavioural conditions and compliance controls. Analysing state-farmer relations therefore supplements earlier explanations for tensions created between non-aligned dimensions of agricultural post-exceptionalism.