Transforming global food systems to meet sustainability and justice outcomes under climate change requires engaging with complex multi-level governance while appreciating specific local contexts. As such, climate change and food security are ‘messy’ policy issues; policies need to be effectively shaped and fit for purpose across different scales, geographic areas, and sectors. Policy implementation necessitates coordination across multiple perspectives towards a common goal, and an anticipatory governance approach can enable this. Working against the status quo is not easy but can be achieved through truly engaged and inclusive stakeholder processes. Redistribution of power entails employing a gendered, socially inclusive lens in the development of food system transformation policies. Establishing an enabling policy environment for transforming food systems requires diverse approaches and multiple perspectives. The appropriate facilitation and coordination of multi-stakeholder engagements is key to clear communication between participants and to support learning.

Partnerships are crucial for fostering change in society, particularly in the solving of complex problems such as climate change. They are particularly important for researchers interested in societal change, given that research in the strictest sense is only about knowledge generation. Given partnerships are crucial for outcome-focused research, the selection of diverse strategic partners is key and must be guided by theories of change. Complementary visions are important but do not always need to be tightly structured. From farmers and producer groups to international agencies, multi-level partnerships help promote action at different levels. Collaborative arrangements are important but can be informal and flexible; many successful longer-term partnerships are deep and trustful at their core, often with informal relationships.

How individuals try to solve problems, from simple to life-threatening ones, has been a central question across the scientific landscape. Not surprisingly, disciplines have offered theories representing their unique perspectives from cost, psychological predispositions, social status, culture, power, and even genetic inheritance. What was common across these explanations, even as larger structures or context were considered to limit or enhance action, was the focus on individuals, the primary assumption of action as decision-making or help-seeking, and an internal cost-benefit mechanism. While providing many insights, this understanding of the basis of human action falls short. The social network perspective suggests a shift to the influence of others on social action and a reconsideration of underlying assumptions. This reflection considers how applying an approach where social networks are the engine of action produced the Social Organization Strategy framework, the Network Episode Model, subsequent revisions, and the multi-level, multi-disciplinary Network Embedded Symbiome. This chapter describes how this social network perspective guides a new research effort on human well-being — the Person-to-Person Health Interview Study — and includes specific measurement batteries for ego-centric data collection.

Chapter 3 draws on the historical basis laid out in the prior chapter to establish how the current national security arenas of each country came about and what it means for the local cases under scrutiny here. Going beyond the national level, decisions made by peacekeeping headquarters and mission contributors inform the actions of international actors and form a sort of international security arena. The described historical legacies, narratives, and capacities of actors on the national and international levels shape the corridor in which different ordering practices can be negotiated at the local level.