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Citizen StakeholdersLegislation & Regulation

Democratising biotechnology?: Deliberation, participation and social regulation in a neo-liberal world

Peter Newell

Publication date: 23/04/2010

There is now significant policy and academic interest in the governance of science and technology for sustainable development. In recent years this has come to include a growing emphasis on issues of public understanding of science and innovative processes of deliberative and inclusive policy-making around controversial technologies such as nuclear power and agricultural biotechnology. Concern with such issues coincides with rising levels of interest in deliberative democracy and its relationship to the structures and processes of global governance. This article connects these two areas through a critical examination of ‘global’ deliberations about agricultural biotechnology and its risks and benefits.

It draws on an extensive survey concerned with the diverse ways in which a range of governments are interpreting and implementing their commitments under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety regarding public participation and consultation in order to assess the potential to create forms of deliberation through these means. The article explores both the limitations
of public deliberation within global governance institutions as well as of projects whose aim is to impose participation from above through international law by advocating model
approaches and policy ‘tool kits’ that are insensitive to vast differences between countries in terms of capacity, resources and political culture.

Resource type: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)

Citizen StakeholdersPlant & Animal Breeding

The three main monotheistic religions and gm food technology: an overview of perspectives

Omobowale EB et al

Publication date: 22/08/2009

HIDE SUMMARY VIEW ON EXTERNAL SITE

Public acceptance of genetically modified crops is partly rooted in religious views. However, the views of different religions and their potential influence on consumers’ decisions have not been systematically examined and summarized in a brief overview. We review the positions of the Judaism, Islam and Christianity – the three major monotheistic religions to which more than 55% of humanity adheres to – on the controversies aroused by GM technology.

The article establishes that there is no overarching consensus within the three religions. Overall, however, it appears that mainstream theology in all three religions increasingly tends towards acceptance of GM technology per se, on performing GM research, and on consumption of GM foods. These more liberal approaches, however, are predicated on there being rigorous scientific, ethical and regulatory scrutiny of research and development of such products, and that these products are properly labeled.

We conclude that there are several other interests competing with the influence exerted on consumers by religion. These include the media, environmental activists, scientists and the food industry, all of which function as sources of information and shapers of perception for consumers.

Resource type: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)

Citizen StakeholdersLegislation & RegulationScience & Technology

Taking European knowledge society seriously

Felt U, Wynne B et al

Publication date: 06/07/2007

HIDE SUMMARY VIEW ON EXTERNAL SITE

This report is the product of an expert working group acting under mandate from the European Commission Directorate General for Research (DG RTD), including contributions from specialists in science and technology studies, policy analysis, sociology, philosophy and law, as well as participants from civil society organizations.

The report looks at the causes and implications of widely-recognised European public unease with science and science-based technologies. It asks how we might at the same time further EU commitments to enhance democratic civil society in Europe, as well as address urgent challenges for science and technology policy, for science and governance, including those of climate and sustainability. Individual chapters deal with innovation policy, the regulation of risk institutionalised approaches to ethics, and modes of learning in complex environments, as well as efforts to engage European publics in the governance of science.

A final conceptual chapter draws these themes together by analysing the role of overarching ‘imaginaries’ in shaping practices and perspectives in all these areas. In conclusion, the report advances a number of salient messages for policy makers and sixteen specific recommendations for policy improvement. In sum, the authors call for new forms of experiment in both governance and science, moving beyond conventional linear understandings and engaging afresh with the rich diversity of European public life. Only in this way, the authors argue, will European policy take ‘knowledge society’ seriously -and fulfil its abundant promise.

Link takes you to an online document with the option to download.

Resource type: Web page URL

Citizen StakeholdersScience & Technology

Are scientists right and non-scientists wrong? Reflections on discussions of GM

Jan Deckers

Publication date: 30/09/2005

HIDE SUMMARY VIEW ON EXTERNAL SITE

The aim of this article is to further our understanding of the “GM is unnatural” view, and of the critical response to it.

While many people have been reported to hold the view that GM is unnatural, many policy-makers and their advisors have suggested that the view must be ignored or rejected, and that there are scientific reasons for doing so. Three “typical” examples of ways in which the “GM is unnatural” view has been treated by UK policy-makers and their advisors are explored. These are the Government’s position (DEFRA Report), the account of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and the position of Nigel Halford, a scientist with an advisory role to the Government. I show that their accounts fail to mount a convincing critique. Then, I draw on an empirical research project held during 2003–2004 at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the north east of England.

Scientists met with non-scientists in a range of facilitated one-to-one conversations (“exchanges”) on various environmental issues, one of which was on GM. Our findings show that some scientists who rejected the “GM is unnatural” view struggled to do so consistently. Their struggle is interpreted in terms of a conflict between a so-called “scientific” worldview, and a different worldview that underlies the concerns of those who held the “GM is unnatural” view. This worldview is explored further by an examination of their concerns. What distinguishes this worldview from the “scientific” worldview is that the instrumentalization of the nonhuman world is questioned to a larger extent.

I conclude that, because the underlying concerns of those who held the “GM is unnatural” view were not with GM as such, yet with a worldview that was considered to be problematic, and of which many GM applications were held to be expressions, policy-makers and their advisors should reflect on the critical worldview of those who claim that GM is unnatural if they want to engage seriously with their concerns.

Main link goes to the pay per view abstract. The author’s .pdf version can be found here.

Resource type: Web page URL