GM Food on Trial: Testing European Democracy

This work analyzes the dynamics of agricultural biotechnology trials within the process of European integration, using "trials" in a multi-defined way to mean: the examination of evidence in order to reach judgments on safety, risk, guilt, etc.; testing the performance of institutions, especially regarding irresponsibility and unaccountability; competing for authority to set policy agendas and devise strategies that could address societal conflicts; and testing institutional endurance and adaptation in pursuit of democratic legitimacy. Over the course of nine chapters, the authors address the contending discursive frames of proponents, opponents, and the European Union policy system; activist testing of the institutional frameworks of sustainable/unsustainable agriculture; the role of state-sponsored "participatory technology assessments" of agricultural biotechnology in marginalizing choices about innovation pathways; testing of the purported scientific expertise of the European Food Safety Authority by member states and agricultural biotechnology critics; conflicts over scaling up genetically modified crops for commercial use and societal experiment; trials over the labeling of genetically modified products; disputes over the danger of inadvertent mixing of genetically modified material with non-genetically modified products; and the controversy over agricultural biotechnology as a venue for putting the European integration project itself on trial. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Les Levidow is on the faculty of the Development Policy and Practice department at The Open University.

Susan Carr is a Senior Lecturer in Systems at The Open University.