Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Sustainable governance is a collaborative and systemic approach to governing that fosters innovation and inclusiveness of a broad combination of actors, processes, and instruments. Sustainable innovations in governance draw from the energy, expertise, and resources of the collaborative to employ more sustainable bottom-up policy solutions. Such is the case with grassroots innovations that focuses on the local situation, includes local coalitions and networks of activists and institutions, and incorporates the established values of the community into the implemented innovation. This study looks at a coalition in North Carolina that is using a bottom-up approach to creating a local food economy in the state. In an effort to increase consumer outreach and education, the NC 10% Campaign was established as an instrument to engage residents and organizations to consume 10% of their food from local sources thereby increasing demand for local products. The data shows promising growth of adoption of local food, what is less understood are the causes and dynamics of adoption over time among institutions. This research seeks to show what influences time to adoption of local food via the campaign among restaurants in North Carolina. This article uses diffusion of innovation, institutional theory and public choice theory to answer the question of whether local food diffusion in North Carolina is occurring primarily through mimetic isomorphism “from above” at the institutional level or if it is driven “from below” by public choice as expressed by stakeholders, in a given spatial region. An event history analysis is the methodological approach used in this study in the hopes of illuminating the primary covariates that positively impact adoption time so as to inform similar future campaigns.