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PROTESTING FOOD: Ngos and POLITICAL MOBILIZATION in EUROPE

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PROTESTING FOOD: Ngos and POLITICAL MOBILIZATION in EUROPE PROTESTING FOOD: NGOs AND POLITICAL MOBILIZATION IN EUROPE 1 Chris Ansell, Rahsaan Maxwell, and Daniela Sicurelli 1 Chris Ansell, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley; Rahsaan Maxwell, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley; Daniela Sicurelli, Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento. Protesting Food: NGOS and Political Mobilization in Europe From the perspective of the debate about European food safety, 1996 was both annus horribilis (horrible year) and anus mirabilis (year of wonder) rolled into one. Five events occurred in 1996 that set off a firestorm of controversy about the character and safety of European food: first, the UK announced that a mind-wasting malady called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease had afflicted humans and that the probable cause was consumption of beef infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE); second, US- grown genetically-modified corn and soybeans began to arrive in European ports; third, Dolly the sheep, the world’s first cloned mammal, was born in the UK; fourth, the US and Canada lodged a complaint with the WTO against Europe’s ban on beef raised on hormones; fifth, the US biotechnology giant Monsanto took the European Commission to court for failing to approve the use of a genetically- engineered hormone used to boost milk production (rbST). The wave of protest responding to these events galvanized the emergence of a powerful European social movement opposed genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). By 1998, a de facto European moratorium against the planting or use of GMOs came into effect. The Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that comprise the anti-GMO movement have taken center stage in the European contestation over genetic engineering and the politics of food. Their influence has been pervasive. They have cut down GM crops grown on test sites, pressured major food retailers to go GM-free, demanded the application of the precautionary principle in approving new GM crops, monitored nations and companies for compliance with the moratorium, staged media-savvy symbolic protests against the genetic 2 patents, lobbied all levels of government in favor of a GM ban, and challenged the scientific claims of private industry and government agencies. In this paper, we ask how these NGOs have established themselves as critical interlocutors between public opinion and public and private organizations. We examine the organizations and coalitions that comprise the anti-GMO movement, their strategies and tactics, and the ways they have sought to frame the debate about genetic engineering. Our investigation takes us somewhat beyond the food safety debate per se into issues related to environmental protection, farming, and globalization. This broader focus is necessary, however, to understand the contested nature of food safety governance and the longer-term implications of this debate. In broad terms, we argue that politics of food is so visceral in Europe because of the way it links environmentalists, consumers, and small farmers together around issues of trade, corporate power, and scientific risk. Opposition to GMOs has linked these different social movement sectors together in a transnational advocacy network that flexibly mobilizes opposition and influence at multiple levels: public and private, institutional and non-institutional, and local, national, European and international. This anti-GMO movement has important implications for trends in the politicization of science and risk assessment and for the reestablishment of the legitimacy of food safety governance. Most importantly, perhaps, this movement strongly advocates the adoption of precautionary approaches to risk assessment—a trend that creates significant tension in food safety regulation at the international level. Second, the anti-GMO movement has contributed to the politicization of science, by rejecting clear demarcation between fact and value and by providing alternative sources of information and critical scrutiny of scientific claims made by scientists, industry, and government (Wales and Mythen 2002). To understand the depth of 3 this politicization, we need only to cite the findings of Eurobarometer opinion polls that indicate that the European public trusts environmental and consumer groups over universities, government agencies, or industry to provide information about the hazards of biotechnology (Gaskell, Allum, and Stares 2003, 32). In addition to effects on the politicization of science and risk assessment, the mobilization of an effective anti-GMO movement mobilizes dissent over the actions of private corporations and government policy. The anti-GMO movement has been highly successful in channeling public opinion into effective consumer pressure on private corporations at many points along the product chain (though primarily supermarket retailers). It also operates successfully and simultaneously at multiple governmental levels, partly through an implicit division of labor between organizations operating at different levels (from GM Free Cymru [Wales] to Consumers’ International) and through its ability to operate simultaneously at multiple levels (especially Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace). And finally, it is able to tap into both specialized issue publics and their social networks (UK Gardeners, ChristianAid, the Danish Beekeepers’ Association, etc.) and diffuse constitutencies (environmental, consumer, agricultural). The long term nature of this coalition remains an open question, but we will conclude the paper with some considerations about the durability of this issue. European Mobilization Against GMOs A number of authors have noted that European consumer and environmental NGOs have been critical in mobilizing opposition to GMOs and their success explains the relative stringency of 4 European regulation in these terms (in comparison with the US). Bernauer and Meins (2003) argue that the European anti-GMO movement mounted a successful campaign against GMOs for at least three reasons: (1) because it has piggy-backed on negative public opinion toward GMOs and public outrage toward regulatory authorities in order to mobilize protest against GMOs; (2) because European consumer groups have created effective alliances with producer groups, though the producer groups have not principally been motivated by protectionist rent- seeking; and (3) because it has successfully leveraged multiple access points associated with multilevel governance in Europe. They argue, by contrast, that American NGOs have not mobilized as effectively because US consumers are in general more favorable toward GMOs, more trusting of public authorities, and because they confront a more unified pro-GMO producer coalition. In this section, we treat the Bernauer and Meins argument as a starting point from which to examine European anti-GMO mobilization. First, we examine the overall composition of the movement. Table 1 identifies the frequency with which a particular NGO was mentioned in a specialized mailing list archive devoted to information exchange among a European network of anti-GMO groups (GENET). 5 TABLE 1: NGOs and ANTI-GMO ACTIVITIES, January 1999-June 2003 (Number of Mentions in GENET’s Mailing List Archive)2 INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS: *Friends of the Earth (53); *Greenpeace (68). EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS: *Ecoropa (3); European Environmental Bureau (1). NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS: France Nature Environment (1); German Society of Ecology (1); Green Environment and Society (3; Italy); *Quercus (1; Portugal); Worldwide Fund for Nature (1; Switzerland); Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (3; UK); Irish Wildlife Trust (1); Earthwatch (1; Ireland); Irish Doctors Environment Association (1); Friends of the Irish Environment (1); Green League (1; Germany); Green Library Fund (1; Sweden); GIAI Trust (UK); NABU (1; Birdlife Partner; Germany); *National Secretariat of Ecologists in Action (1; Spain); *World Wildlife Fund Switzerland (1); *Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (1); Danish Society for the Conservation of Nature (1); Danish Society of Practical Ecology. REGIONAL OR LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS: Fife Earth First! (1) POLITICAL PARTIES: Green Party UK (3); Green Party Northern Ireland (2); Green Party Scotland; Greens (1; France); *Greens (2; EU); Scottish National Party (1). ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS FOCUSING ON SUSTAINABILIITY: *A SEED Europe (6); ANPED—the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (4); *Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN; 3); SUSTAIN—Alliance for Better Food and Farming (2; UK), *Berne Declaration (2; Switzerland); the Corner House (1; UK); GENETICS GROUPS: *Basler Appeal Against Gene Technology (1; Switzerland); Genetic Concern (4; Ireland); Genetix Action (1; Scotland); Genetic Engineering Network (2; UK); GenetiX Snowball Group (3); Genewatch (6; UK); GM Free Cymru (1; Wales); Moray GM Concern (1; Scotland); People’s Biosafety Association (1; Finland); Dutch Platform on 2 The information in this table is derived from the GENET mailing list archive for the years 1999-May 2003. GENET is a European network of NGOs critical of genetic engineering. It has 38 member organizations in 15 European countries. The mailing list is designed to facilitate information exchange among organizations engaged in campaigns against GMOs. We examined each mailing list entry in the archive between 1999-2003, recording the number of times an NGOs was identified in the communications (in parentheses). We were inclusive in
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