History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
ESA Conference: Ageing Societies, New Sociology
September 23-26, 2003 in Murcia, Spain
Two streams of sessions of the
Research Network 18: Sociology of Science and Technology (SSTNET)
Convenors:
Raymund Werle: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Köln, Germany (werle@mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de)
Marja Häyrinen Alestalo: Dept. of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland (marja.alestalo@helsinki.fi)
Luísa Oliveira: DINÂMIA/ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal (luisa.oliveira@iscte.pt)
Maarten Mentzel: 38 Johan de Wittstraat, 2334 AR Leiden, The Netherlands (m.a.mentzel@planet.nl)
First Stream: Governing Science and Technology in the Era of Globalization
Wednesday Sept. 24
17.00 - 18.30 session 4 (Campus de La Merced)
Chair: Raymund Werle
4.1 Author(s): Levidow, Les
Institution: Centre for Technology Strategy, Open University
Professional Category: Professor
City: Milton Keynes
Country: United Kingdom
E-mail: L.Levidow@open.ac.uk
TRANS-ATLANTIC GOVERNANCE OF GM FOOD
GM food has become a focus for wider debate over ‘science-based regulation’ and governance of technological change. This case study specifically focuses on potential health risks of GM food. The study links two analytical frameworks. In the field of SSK/STS, regulatory science has been defined as a mix of factual information and socio-political values. In political science, governance has been defined as process-management of collective action encompassing non-state actors and blurring boundaries of responsibility. Conflicts are managed by incorporating dissent into common problem-definitions.
On both sides of the Atlantic, early government policy was shaped by a neoliberal model of economic competitiveness which required high-productivity technology alongside harmonisation of regulatory standards. When GM crops already commercialized in the USA were approved by the EU, there were Europe-wide protests, some national bans and delays in further approvals. In response, EC officials warned that the USA could bring a case against the EU at the WTO. However, facing greater GM opposition, European governments advocated delay or restrictions on commercial use. Meanwhile NGOs challenged the original basis of safety claims for GM products. Early regulation, based on ‘substantial equivalence’ (SE), was undermined and recast because it looked only at chemical composition, thus emphasising similarities between GM and non-GM food. Various NGOs attacked this in the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue. Consumer representatives pressed similar criticisms, e.g. in the US-EU Consultative Forum on Biotech, an OECD working group and Codex Alimentarius, which sets global standards relevant to WTO rules. Those bodies' reports argued that SE should merely structure a risk assessment (rather than serve as the endpoint) and emphasized the need to look for potential differences in GM food. Meanwhile EU member states challenged the European Commission statutory framework based on SE, and demanded safety tests beyond compositional equivalence.
Overall those new procedures served a dual role, selectively incorporating or marginalising various critics of GM food safety. Institutional challenges to SE triggered the adoption of more stringent and complex test methods. Consumer organisations shared responsibility to achieve the goal of consumer confidence through more safety tests. Conversely, anti-GM activists which had emphasised the inherent unpredictability of the technology were marginalised.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006