The Role of Participation in a Techno-Scientific Controversy
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PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE AND INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATION Participatory Governance and Institutional Innovation [PAGANINI] Contract No. CIT2-CT-2004-505791 . Deliverable Number 16 Work Package 6 _ GM Food THE ROLE OF PARTICIPATION IN A TECHNO-SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY Larry Reynolds and Bronislaw Szerszynski with Maria Kousis and Yannis Volakakis 6th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technology Participatory Governance and Institutional Innovation [PAGANINI] Contract No. CIT2-CT-2004-505791 . Deliverable Number 16 WORK PACKAGE 6 _ GM FOOD THE ROLE OF PARTICIPATION IN A TECHNO-SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY Larry Reynolds and Bronislaw Szerszynski with Maria Kousis and Yannis Volakakis 1 The Paganini Project Focussing on selected key areas of the 6th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technology, PAGANINI investigates the ways in which participatory practices contribute to problem solving in a number of highly contentious fields of EU governance. PAGANINI looks at a particular dynamic cluster of policy areas concerned with what we call “the politics of life”: medicine, health, food, energy, and environment. Under “politics of life” we refer to dimensions of life that are only to a limited extent under human control - or where the public has good reasons to suspect that there are serious limitations to socio-political control and steering. At the same time, “politics of life” areas are strongly connected to normative, moral and value-based factors, such as a sense of responsibility towards the non-human nature, future generations and/or one‟s own body. In these areas traditional mechanisms of governance can be seen to hamper policymaking and much institutional experimentation has been taking place. The overall objective of the proposed research is to analyse how fields of governance related to the “politics of life” constitute a new and particular challenge for citizen participation and the generation of active trust to illuminate how citizens‟ participation in key areas of European research and technology policy that are connected to the “politics of life” can be made more effective and appropriate, to investigate the changing role of civic participation in the context of multi-level governance in the European Union, to contribute to institutional re-design in a the emerging European “politics of life”. Work package 6 – GM-Food: the role of participation in a techno- scientific controversy The WP will examine the role played by public participation in the regulation of agricultural biotechnology in Europe. In particular it aims: to understand the development of the social controversy over the use of agricultural biotechnology in Europe; to identify, categorise and assess existing and emerging participatory practices in Europe, and assess the way in which they have succeeded in generating innovative governance and active trust, with attention to the „inclusiveness‟ of participation in terms of gender, age, class and ethnicity; to analyse tensions and conflicts between emergent participatory governance practices at the national level and transnational bodies such as the EU and WTO; and to draw out implications for the effective design of participatory institutions. This report This report is the final report of work package 6. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ 3 Executive summary .......................................................................................................... 4 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 10 2. The context: the gene and competing European imperatives ..................................... 13 2.1 – The meaning of the gene ......................................................................................... 13 2.2 – The meanings of GM ............................................................................................... 15 2.3 – Competing European imperatives ............................................................................. 20 The innovatory imperative............................................................................................ 21 The precautionary imperative ....................................................................................... 27 3. The GM controversy in Europe: the narrative .............................................................. 35 3.1 Europe ..................................................................................................................... 35 The establishment of the EU regulatory framework for GMOs ............................................ 35 Consents and discontents ............................................................................................. 38 The call for labelling .................................................................................................... 41 Public unrest, institutional void, bans and moratoria ........................................................ 46 Changes to the regulatory frame work ........................................................................... 51 3.2. Greece .................................................................................................................... 58 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 58 Phase I. The beginning of institutional innovation: formation of concern and initiatives about GMOs, early-late nineties .................................................................................... 60 Phase II. The moratorium, GMO infiltration, and participatory governance, late nineties to 2004 .......................................................................................................... 68 Phase III: Coexistence, GM-free Balkans, and institutional innovation, 2004 and beyond ...................................................................................................................... 78 3.3. The United Kingdom ................................................................................................. 90 Phase I: The arrival of GM food and crops, 1996-1998 ..................................................... 90 Phase II: Institutional innovation, 1998-9 ...................................................................... 92 Phase III, AEBC and GM Nation, 2000-2004 ................................................................. 101 4. The politics of life in the GM controversy .......................................................................... 115 4.1 - Europe as a technological zone ............................................................................... 115 4.2 - The DRD: governing GMOs as a special category. Life, pollution and technology ........... 116 4.3 - Institutional ambiguity and the transition from risk to uncertainty ............................... 117 4.4 - The innovation of the new regime of coexistence: From (nation) states to (global) markets, from scientific governance to consumer choice. ................................................... 119 4.5 - Science and its others: spaces, separations and orderings in the governance of GMOs .......................................................................................................................... 121 4.6 - Spaces, separations and reorderings in the UK ......................................................... 126 5. Performing publics and participation ........................................................................ 132 6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 145 Glossary of acronyms ................................................................................................... 151 Key EU directives, regulations and guidelines .............................................................. 152 Interviews .................................................................................................................... 155 References ................................................................................................................... 160 3 Acknowledgments This report was written by Larry Reynolds and Bronislaw Szerszynski with Maria Kousis and Yannis Volakakis. Kousis and Volakakis researched the Greek case study, were the lead authors of section 3.2, and commented on drafts of the other sections. The UK team is grateful for the generous cooperation of those who agreed to be interviewed for the project. The Greek team also gratefully acknowledges the assistance of interviewees and informants from state agencies (especially I. Hondropoulos from YPEHODE and K. Anagnostou from YPAAT), NGOs (especially M. Pispini from Greenpeace and K. Mpalias, legal advisor of Greenpeace), universities, members of bioethics committees and other fora. 4 Executive summary This report is about the conflict over Genetically Modified Organisms in food and agriculture between 1990 and 2006. It looks at the dynamics of this conflict within the European Union and two of its member states which had contrasting responses, Greece and Great Britain. This „Battle over GMOs‟ has been one of the sharpest so far in the „biotech revolution‟ threatening to derail the new technology. It thus provides an important case for the exploration of the key themes that the PAGANINI Project takes as its focus – the destabilising potential of the „politics