Domestic Gastrodiplomacy in the U.S. During the Great Depression and International Relations Theory

Authors

• Leah Tucker, Portland State UniversityFollow

Keywords

International Relations, New Deal, Great Depression

Abstract

International Relations scholarship has generally treated food as an outward-facing instrument of soft power, leaving its domestic political functions comparatively underexamined. This paper argues that, during periods of systemic crisis, food policy can also operate inwardly as a mechanism of regime stabilization with broader political implications. Using New Deal food programs during the Great Depression as a case study, it introduces the concept of “domestic gastrodiplomacy” to describe how the management of subsistence can reinforce confidence in governing institutions when that confidence is under strain.

The paper evaluates this claim through realist, liberal, and constructivist perspectives. Each highlights a different dimension of the problem: the risks internal instability poses for state capacity, the institutional processes through which reform is carried out, and the role of shared meaning in sustaining legitimacy. Taken together, these approaches show that food policy functioned simultaneously as material intervention and political signal.

Building on Gourevitch’s “second image reversed,” the paper argues that domestic subsistence policy should be understood as part of the relationship between internal legitimacy and external standing. When regime durability is uncertain, the management of basic needs becomes one of the most visible ways states demonstrate their capacity to govern. This reframes food policy as analytically relevant to International Relations, not as a peripheral welfare concern, but as a mechanism through which legitimacy is maintained under pressure.

Publication Date

7-9-2026

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Tucker, Leah (2026) "Domestic Gastrodiplomacy in the U.S. During the Great Depression and International Relations Theory," Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 4.