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Managing the Agricultural Biotechnology Revolution: Responses to Transgenic Seeds in Developing Countries

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Managing the Agricultural Biotechnology Revolution: Responses to Transgenic Seeds in Developing Countries University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses July 2016 Managing the Agricultural Biotechnology Revolution: Responses to Transgenic Seeds in Developing Countries Alper Yagci University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Asian Studies Commons, Comparative Politics Commons, Environmental Policy Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Food Security Commons, Growth and Development Commons, International Relations Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Public Policy Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, and the Science and Technology Policy Commons Recommended Citation Yagci, Alper, "Managing the Agricultural Biotechnology Revolution: Responses to Transgenic Seeds in Developing Countries" (2016). Doctoral Dissertations. 703. https://doi.org/10.7275/8420639.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/703 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MANAGING THE AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION: RESPONSES TO TRANSGENIC SEEDS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES A Dissertation Presented by ALPER YAGCI Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2016 Political Science © Copyright by Alper Yagci 2016 All Rights Reserved MANAGING THE AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION: RESPONSES TO TRANSGENIC SEEDS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES A Dissertation Presented by ALPER YAGCI Approved as to style and content by: _________________________________________ Peter M. Haas, Chair _________________________________________ Frederic C. Schaffer, Member _________________________________________ James K. Boyce, Member _________________________________________ Kevin Young, Member _________________________________________ Jane E. Fountain, Department Head Political Science ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor Peter M. Haas and committee members Frederic C. Schaffer, James K. Boyce, and Kevin Young for inspiring me with their research, putting much trust in me and closely advising the dissertation. The research benefited from National Science Foundation grant 1124079, and a Mellon- ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship facilitated writing. Marcos Silveira de Buckeridge, Michelle Chauvet, Roberto Bisang, Sebastian Sztulwark, José Maria da Silveira, Antonio Marcio Buainain, Ricardo Tatesuzi de Sousa, Daniela Aviani, Mehmet Uyanık, Arzu Ünal helped me to understand technical aspects of agricultural biotechnology and related economic issues. Conversations with André Roncaglia de Carvalho and Ceren Soylu gave me ideas about analytical strategies. İlker Yağcı, Martin Rapetti, Hüseyin Şerarettin Suveren, Michael Hannahan provided invaluable help in accessing contacts necessary for the fieldwork. Mere citation would not be enough to acknowledge the generous help of colleagues who shared with me their unpublished work on topics closely related to mine, so special thanks to Felipe Filomeno, Tamara Perelmuter and Barış Gençer Baykan. Filomeno’s 2012 PhD thesis, especially, which I came to know of during my field research, provided me with many leads to follow. Participants to presentations at WZB Berlin Social Science Center, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Özyeğin University, and Boğaziçi University, especially Michael Zürn, Martin Krzywdinski, Pieter de Wilde, Martijn Mos, Başak Yavcan, Yeşim Arat, Hakan Yılmaz provided excellent feedback. The writing process was facilitated by semester-long visiting scholar positions at WZB Berlin, and Koc University’s GLODEM Institute in Istanbul. iv The Interdisciplinary Institute for Political Economy at the University of Buenos Aires, and the Political Science department of Torcuato di Tella University helped with access to campus facilities. I benefited from the publicly available resources of the universities of São Paulo and Brasília. I accessed Boğaziçi University library as a Boğaziçi graduate. During my studies at UMass Amherst, apart from the members of my dissertation committee, other faculty taught me a lot in their respective fields: Brian Schaffner, Jesse Rhodes, Amel Ahmed, Mohan Rao, Mwangi wa Githinji, Jillian Schwedler, Nick Xenos, Bruce Desmarais. Administrative support provided by Michelle Gonçalvez and Jennie Southgate deserved all praise. Conversations over many years with Mine Eder, Huricihan İslamoğlu, Cem Oyvat, Mert Arslanalp, Aytuğ Şaşmaz, Osman Berker Yağcı, Caterina Scaramelli, Ali Can Yıldırım, Evren Aydoğan, Esra Bakkalbaşıoğlu and Aytekin Ertan contributed to my intellectual development. I was lucky to have Hilal Sweiti as a teacher. Oft-repeated questions from İlker Yağcı, Seref Yağcı and Nurcan Yağcı about what exactly I am doing with my life encouraged me to get work done at a respectable pace. While writing the dissertation I listened to music by the Gotan Project. All remaining mistakes should be attributed to them. v ABSTRACT MANAGING THE AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION: RESPONSES TO TRANSGENIC SEEDS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES MAY 2016 ALPER YAGCI, B.A., BOGAZICI UNIVERSITY M.A., BOGAZICI UNIVERSITY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Peter M. Haas There has been heated debate over transgenic or genetically modified (GM) crops in agriculture. Advocates and critics argue over possible economic, environmental, public health implications of this technology. This study examines varying policy approaches to regulating GM crop cultivation in four developing countries where the technology has large potential application. Why have some countries banned GM crop cultivation in their territory while others encouraged it? In countries where GM crops were allowed, why have varying systems of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection been constructed? To investigate these questions I comparatively examine the policy experience (1995-2015) of Argentina, Brazil, Turkey relying on original fieldwork and India based on secondary literature. The explanation combines structural considerations with a social constructivist understanding of how actors make use of ideas to interpret and articulate their interests in a context defined by novelty and uncertainty. I find that transnational biotechnology companies lobby developing country governments for permission of GM crop cultivation and strict IPR protection so as to be able to charge the cultivators technology fees. While public opinion tends to be opposed to these crops, associations of big farmers tend to favor their adoption and view the IPR claims by vi biotechnology companies as relatively tolerable. Smaller farmers and domestic seed industry, on the other hand, seek guarantees from the state that technology adoption conditions will not be established to their disadvantage. Which agenda is prioritized in policy-making will depend not only on the political weight of each pressure group but also on the statesmen’s management of the available knowledge on such questions as how the GM plants work, who they are good for, why they may or may not be needed. I observe that coalitions of scientists, civil society activists and pro-active bureaucrats are influential in shaping the policy vision by generating policy knowledge and ideas offering answers to such questions. I call them “epistemic coalitions.” They strategically mix selective scientific evidence with social and ideological narratives, under conditions of incomplete scientific consensus. I demonstrate that GM-skeptic epistemic coalitions can have a good chance at policy influence where the pro-GM producer sector is highly fragmented, but where the producer sector is strong the same opposition can be functional in obtaining a domestic producer- oriented policy by challenging the legitimacy of extensive IPR claims advanced by transnational biotechnology firms. The study thus provides an empirical account of the political reactions provoked, and some of the social-economical outcomes generated, by a controversial agricultural technology. On a theoretical level it contributes to debates in political science about the place of ideas, cognitive frames and social learning in public policy; and advances the epistemic communities research program. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................xv CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................1 The Question ............................................................................................................................... 1 Why Pursue This Question ........................................................................................................
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