LamprouMemo14

Memo 14 Research in nanotechnology has gained great support and shows rapid development. Within ten years nanotechnology became the main promising technoscientific frontier in research for academia, industry and federal government. In 2001, the Clinton administration established the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), and in 2003 the ‘21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act’. Under the ‘21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act’ (108 P.L. 153, 2003), “NNI now coordinates the multiagency efforts in nanoscale science, engineering, and technology” through the participation of twenty-three federal agencies (IFAS 4). A year later the European Union through the European Commission discusses the European nanotechnology policy and in 2005 establishes the First Implementation Report. Despite extensive investments in nanotechnology and the promising novel materials that it has produced, the field still lacks standards concerning a variety of issues, including nomenclature, materials properties, testing, measurement, and safety. The absence of standards and regulations creates important issues concerning the health and environmental safety but also concerning the establishment of a common scientific language necessary for the development of the field. But the great commercial uses that nano-materials promise, make the processes of creating standards even more difficult. Who is going to decide what standards are going to be developed? And how are those standards going to be developed and harmonized? The process of framing and regulating a new technoscientific field and its products is a complicated one; especially in a neoliberal global reality. In the US the difficult process of the development of standards has been taken up almost entirely by the private sector. Most of the time not-for-profit private organizations with connections to governmental regimes and offices are the ones who develop standards but at the same time bring together the interested stakeholders to discuss and decide about the volunteer standards needed (IFAS), by creating open spaces for discussion. At the same time in the EU the issue is been discussed by the European Commission with the EU governments playing an important central role, but with broad participation from different stakeholders (civil society organizations, NGOs). On the surface, the policy cultures in the EU and the US are very different, with Europe exhibiting greater commitments to public participation, social welfare, and environmental protection. However, on closer examination, the processes for setting nanotech standards in both contexts reflect neoliberal commitments to free markets with minimal regulation. Under the umbrella of harmonization, policy outcomes are common. But the procedures towards these common policies I am assuming are not without debates and differences. Identifying power issues there, is of great interest. At the same time, standardization and policy making procedures in the case of nanotechnology illustrate a new kind of public participation where the idea of participation is obvious so there is an illusion of democratic procedures. But the power structures are not distributed equal and this fact can reveal important aspects not only about the proceedings and developments of neoliberal policies but also about the way the public participate willingly in framing technoscientific fields that give the ruling class the legitimate power to govern our technosientific realities.