In the regulation of new technologies, the questions of what is safe for whom are always thrown up. This is the third blog in a short series discussing the new book – Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World. The third chapter looks at a range of technologies – AI, driverless cars, energy systems and so on, but focuses especially on the debate about GM crops in the late 90s/early 2000s, something I worked on at the time.
In particular, the chapter explores how attempts to close down risk through a so-called ‘science-based’ approach acted to exclude a whole array of public concerns, more centred on uncertainties (about impacts on health, biodiversity, as well as wider questions of ownership and control in the food system).
Biotechnology battles
In the late 1990s a huge debate erupted around GM crops. As the book explains, “In the UK it was especially tense. The new Labour government seemed divided on which way to go: follow the Americans and encourage the commercialisation of the new crops or take the more precautionary stance of the rest of the European Union. Prime Minister Tony Blair with his science minister Lord Sainsbury were gung-ho. Science showed that these new technologies were the way forward, they argued. Others were more sceptical, reflecting a wider public disquiet about the potential risks of such crops. There was a big divide, reflecting deep uncertainties around how such technologies would affect people’s health, the environment, trade relations and wider food security….
In October 1999 we released a report – The Politics of GM Food: Risk, Science and Public Trust – which was based on extensive research by the Global Environmental Change programme of the UK’s Economic and Research Council, which I was co-director of at the time. The then environment minister, Michael Meacher, was dragged into the media studios to debate the findings on the BBC Today Programme among others. Unlike some of his colleagues in government, he was remarkably balanced. Along with the minister in the Cabinet Office, Mo Mowlam, he understood the importance of thinking about the uncertain consequences of a new technology and bringing the public along with any government decision. Aligning with a Europe-wide commitment to the ‘precautionary principle’ and, unlike the Americans, accepting that there was no ‘substantial equivalence’ between GM crops and others produced by different breeding processes, the UK government eventually upheld a moratorium, pending further field trials. Aiming to gain a wider buy-in to any new policy, in 2000 it established the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC), in parallel to the Advisory Committee on Releases into the Environment (ACRE) that was tasked with approving releases.
In addition to studies on the science and economics of GM crops, a process of wider public discussion about GM crop policy – GM Nation? – was initiated in 2002. This was an important innovation. Rather than assuming that science could resolve all uncertainties, there was a need to deliberate on them in a more rounded fashion, with new uncertainties inevitably emerging in the process. Robin Grove-White, one of the commissioners, observed that public concerns “reflected unease about likely contingencies outside the purview, or even the imagination, of present scientific understanding. This extended not only to potential environmental or epidemiological issues as yet unidentified by science, but also to potential ripple effects, whether political, social, economic or ethical in character.” As Grove-White pointed out, no provisions existed within the existing regulatory framework for addressing such uncertainties, meaning that they were effectively evaded by government and industry until later when the public became involved in the debate.”
As the book discusses, the biotechnology battles of that time were a prime example of how debates about new technologies throw up numerous uncertainties, which are seen by different actors in highly divergent ways. As the chapter observes “Expecting these to be resolved by some process of ‘sound science’ led by elite experts away from public scrutiny and sanctioned by politicians as ‘evidence-based’ policymaking was and remains naïve in the extreme. There are multiple uncertainties, different views and inevitably an intense politics around the ‘evidence’. This is why open public deliberation is essential and technocratic models of risk governance, even with performative concessions to consultation and participation, are inadequate. The standard approach to science-policy interactions, where scientists offer closed-down ‘results’ without any expressions of doubt, will not do. Indeed, as any scientist will confirm, such an approach runs counter to the scientific method, where doubt and ‘organised scepticism’ are central features.”
Policy cultures
The book asks, how does this all play out in policymaking? It notes, “The GM debate, even if exceptionally heated and highly divisive, is not unusual. As new technologies throw up divergent views, rather than closing down around a narrow assessment of ‘risk’ led by elite science as the basis for a controlled, instrumental form of ‘risk governance,’ a wider debate is needed. This requires a different approach to policymaking… and offering publics a chance to deliberate on how the future should look. This is not a rejection of science and evidence, far from it; instead, such a stance offers a more effective approach allowing uncertainties to be aired, and for diverse forms of knowledge-making to engage with them. Such knowledge may emerge from established, accredited science, but also from other forms of insight, which may be incredibly valuable when dealing with uncertain settings.”
By the time the GM crop discussion emerged in full force, the disaster of BSE thus made many in the UK (although by no means all) increasingly cautious and more open to debates about uncertainty, while the public expressed a lack of faith in the regulatory institutions and associated expertise that were notionally tasked with ensuring their safety. This provided the context for a much more open, vigorous debate about GM crops in the UK than had happened around other technological risks in the past, and indeed since.”
Different regulatory responses emerged across the world, reflecting both different national contexts and influences of processes of globalisation. In the early 2000s, I explored how the regulation of GM crops was negotiated in Brazil, India (mostly Karnataka state) and South Africa/Zimbabwe (see here, here and here). As the book discusses, debates were framed more widely than immediate health and environmental impacts, and histories of colonisation, the fear of capture by external industries and class-based and political interests within agriculture came to the fore. “Rather than adopt a generic approach to regulation, policies that were appropriate to country contexts emerged through complex front- and back-stage political negotiations and evolving practice, always reflecting different uncertainties and public concerns,” the book explains.
Beyond standardised risk assessments: the need for wider deliberation
In all these cases, as the book discusses, “regulatory decisions around a contested technology represented different contextual responses to uncertainties…. Uncertainties are therefore not neutral, somehow ‘out there’ in the world. They are always conditioned by context and circumstance, and require an engaged, open political debate about impacts and consequences, galvanising diverse knowledges and views. A standardised, instrumental form of risk assessment and governance is always insufficient.”
What we see again and again, is a risk based ‘science’ approach is clearly inadequate (along with a narrow legalistic approach). Instead, policy must public involvement and deliberation central, from upstream science to downstream implementation and policy decisions. This was the lesson from the GM debates, but it also applies to any technology where uncertainties prevail, whether AI or nuclear reactors.
As the chapter highlights, “opening up spaces for wider democratic deliberation is vitally important – as part of technology assessment processes, within regulatory decision-making, in the courts and as part of broader public debate. This must go beyond performative consultation or the nominal addition of a ‘lay’ person onto a committee. Equally, such spaces must always be geared to particular social, political and cultural contexts, steering away from one-size-fits-all governance arrangements, respecting local political economies. More open processes, in a variety of forms, will help us navigate uncertainties thrown up by new developments in science and technology, meaning the many potential benefits are assured, whilst errors are avoided.”
This series of blogs gives a taste of the different chapters, but you will have to read the book to get the full picture, as well as all the case study details, the references and footnotes! You can buy the book (or download it for free) through this link: Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World (politybooks.com). Use 20% off discount code to buy. And if you are in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland or France, do come along to the first launches in October BOOK: Navigating Uncertainty – Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience – PASTRES (or join online at the IDS event on October 3, sign up here: Navigating uncertainty: Radical rethinking for a turbulent World – Institute of Development Studies (ids.ac.uk)).
