["Journal of Agrarian Change, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThis paper examines the role of the state in its ability to enact environmental regulations. Specifically, this study investigates how Malaysian state actors changed, shifted and betrayed various, oftentimes competing interests to ban paraquat, an acutely toxic herbicide. Using state‐relational theory, I identify three roles played by the state over the four‐decade long contest to ban paraquat: dissenter, partner with the private sector and re‐regulator. The analysis reveals that, far from simply forming a sequence of governance approaches, these roles overlap and intersect, offering insight into the trajectory of postcolonial environmental governance. The agri‐food system remains an important site where state sovereignty is produced, and actors continue to move into various regulatory spaces at significant political and economic moments. Ultimately, I argue that an analysis of state roles in regulating crucial inputs, particularly in global south countries, is necessary to deepen our understanding of how states navigate and overcome regulatory challenges.\n"]