Joshua's research evaluates how justice and legitimacy are defined and invoked in global food-systems governance. It compares three governance arrangements: the Committee on World Food Security, the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement, and the UN Food Systems Summit. Drawing on Rawls, Sen, and Fraser, he examines who receives resources, who participates in decisions, and whose knowledge counts. Drawing on Scharpf, Steffek, and Fossen, he assesses who authorises decisions, how decision-making processes operate, and what outcomes institutions deliver. He analyses how climate change intensifies inequalities, shifts priorities, and tests accountability. Through comparative document and discourse analysis, using Kenya to examine national implementation, he traces how institutional claims are translated into rules and practices, whose interests they serve, and how actors challenge them.

More information about Joshua Musumi Chibuyi

Fields of interest

• Normative political philosophy;
• justice and legitimacy;
• global food-systems governance;
• food and nutrition security;
• epistemic justice;
• participatory governance;
• institutional accountability;
• climate justice.    

Research

My doctoral research develops a normative framework for evaluating justice and legitimacy in global food-systems governance. It addresses a gap between political-economy analyses, which expose power asymmetries in food governance, and political philosophy, which has rarely examined justice and legitimacy jointly within this field.

The Committee on World Food Security is the primary case because of its intergovernmental mandate, formal decision-making procedures and commitment to multistakeholder participation. The Scaling Up Nutrition Movement and the UN Food Systems Summit provide secondary comparisons across different governance forms. The SUN Movement combines national ownership with donor, technical and private-sector influence, while the UN Food Systems Summit represents a global discursive process without the formal accountability mechanisms of a standing institution. Kenya serves as a contextual illustration of how these three arrangements intersect nationally, rather than as a separate case.

The analytical framework combines distributive, procedural and epistemic justice with input, throughput and output legitimacy. Drawing on Rawls, Sen, Fraser, Scharpf, Steffek and Fossen, the research evaluates how resources and burdens are distributed, whose knowledge is recognised, who can influence decisions, how authority is justified and how institutional claims may be contested.

Using interpretive document and discourse analysis, I examine publicly available governance frameworks, participation protocols, institutional reports and other discursive outputs. Climate change is analysed as a cross-cutting amplifier that can intensify inequalities, alter institutional authority and privilege particular actors, technologies or policy responses.

Curriculum vitae

Joshua Chibuyi is an external PhD researcher in political philosophy at Leiden University. His doctoral research examines justice and legitimacy in global food-systems governance, focusing on institutional authority, participation, knowledge and accountability under conditions of climate change. Alongside his research, he serves as Head of Global Policy and Advocacy Communications at WWF International. His academic and professional work connects normative political theory with global governance, food and nutrition security, climate policy and international policy advocacy.