LamprouMemo10

Political participation is very important in policy making procedures. Who can be considered an expert and who can participate in political procedures is been a research hot spot for many sts scholars. More important although is how power is been structured in those procedures and how this affects the results. Social movements have changed the participation frameworks and access and created spaces, public spheres that people can engage in discussion and decision making. The sts literature is rich with studies of public participation, democracy in decision making concerning science and technology issues, while at the same time explores the obstacles and power issues that arise with implementing public participation (Brian, 1999; Woodhouse and Nieusma, 2001; Cozzens and Woodhouse, 1995; Yearley, 1992). As well as with literature concerning the relationship between the public science and technology (Irwin, 1997). In a neoliberal reality, new workshops and panels that provide spaces ‘public sphere like’ have been developed not by social movements but by governments, not-for-profit organizations, and the industry. The case of nanotechnology policy arena can serve as a case study for describing the public sphere in neoliberal terms. My research will contribute in the literature of political participation and social movements by exploring this new form of ‘public spheres’. Habermas is describing the public sphere in terms of capitalism, as a way for the bourgeois to gain political power (Habermas, 1991). In the neoliberal reality the public sphere has become a way for the ruling class to maintain their power. The literature that explores the concept of the “public sphere” especially in the STS field is mainly devoted in the issues of public participation in decision making through the spaces created by social movements and civil society organizations (Eder, 1996; Fischer, 2000; Goldbblatt, 1996) and in criticisms of the Habermasian concept as it concerns equal participation (Fraser, 1996). In the policy arena the literature is also exploring the issue of the decline of the public sphere (Boggs, 2000). Boggs, Carl, //The end of Corporate power and the decline of the public sphere//, New York: Guilford, 2000. Cozzens, Susan, and Edward Woodhouse. “Science, Government, and the Politics of Knowledge,” // STS Handbook //, 2d edition (Sage, 1995). Eder, K. “The Institutionalization of Environmentalism: Ecological Discourse and the Second Transformation of the Public Sphere.” In //Risk, Environment, and// //Modernity: Toward a New Ecology,// ed. S. Lash, B. Szerzynski, and B. Wynne, 203-23. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage 1996. Fischer, F. //Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge.// Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000. Fraser, Nancy, “Rethinking the Public Sphere,” from Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the ‘Postsocialist’ Condition, NY, Routledge, 1996. Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1991. Irwin, Alan, // Citizen Science // New York: Routledge, 1997 Martin, Brian, ed., Technology and Public Participation, 1999 (http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/TPP) (250+ pp.) Woodhouse, E.J., and Dean C. Nieusma, “Democratic Expertise,” in Hischemoller et al., eds., // Knowledge, Power, and Participation in Environmental Policy Analysis // New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001. Yearley, Steven. 1992. “Green Ambivalence about Science: Legal-Rational Authority and Scientific Legitimation,” // British Journal of Sociology // 43: 511-532. The term policy culture combines two terms coming from the sts literature: the term political culture and the term science culture ( Berezin, 1997). How those cultures function is of great interest for the sts scholars. Are they closer to the political cultures or to the scientific ones? What are the power structures and who can participate in their decision making? How they make their decisions? My research as a comparative study between EU and US will explore the two different policy cultures in the case of nanotechnology policy. Research in this area is limited, since nanotechnology policies are still in the process of research and discussion. My research will built and contribute in the literature of comparative studies on different policy cultures by expanding it to the area of nanotechnology policy making. Jasanoff argues that comparison studies of different policy cultures “should be seen as a means of investigating the interactions between science and politics, with far reaching implications for governments in advanced industrial democracies” (Jasanoff, 2007, 15). In policy making there are traditionally three criteria: safety, efficacy, and quality but it seems like EU policy makers take into account at least in discussion a fourth one this of socio-economic. This changes a lot the outcomes of the policies that are discussed. For example, because of this fourth criteria, the evaluation of rbGH in the US was totally different that in the EU ( Kleinman & Kinchy, 2003). Further discussion of this criterion and its implementation by different policy cultures is discussed in sts literature (Kleinman & Kinchy, 2007). In addition, studies on the responsibilities and how regulatory scientists make decisions their practices and perspectives have been conducted in order to further understand and conceptualize the culture of regulatory science, and understand judgments that come out from different regulatory agencies ( Abraham, 2002). For example, different adoption of standardization by institutions in the U.S. and Europe where in the latter example the government sets up a certification system and provides assistant ( Delmas, 2002). And answering questions like how commonly agreed technical standards in science can be used differently in different international contexts and how the different institutions shape interest biases in different countries ( Abraham, 1993). Or d ifferences concerning decision and risk taking in comparative studies between United States and Germany showing that these differences occurring among institutional structures characterizing those structures ‘pluralist’ for US in contrast to ‘neo-corporalist for Germany. ( Daemmrich and Krucken, 2000; Lehmbruch and Schmitter, 1982; Jasanoff, 1995). Comparative studies have explored and answer questions like why different chemicals where in some countries approved and to some others not? And what this has to say about the policy makers that made the decision, the scientific data used and the institutions in each country ( Gillespie, Eva, and Johnston, 1979). Abraham, J. (1993) ‘Scientific standards and institutional interests: carcinogenic risk assessment of benoxaprofen in the UK and US’, // Social Studies of Science //, 23: 387–444. Abraham, J. (2002) ‘Regulatory science as culture: contested two-dimensional values at US FDA’, // Science as Culture //, 11: 309–335. Daemmrich, A. and Krucken, G. (2000) ‘Risk versus risk: decision-making dilemmas of drug regulation in the US and Germany’, // Science as Culture //, 9: 505–534. Delmas M. 2002. The diffusion of environmental management standards in Europe and the United States: an institutional perspective. // Policy Sci. // 35:91–119 Gillespie, B., Eva, P. and Johnston, R. (1979) ‘Carcinogenic risk assessment in the United States and Great Britain: the case of aldrin/deildrin’, // Social Studies of // // Science //, 9: 265–301. Jasanoff, S. (1995) `Product, process, or programme: three cultures and the regulation of biotechnology’, in M. Bauer (Ed.), // Resistance to New Technology // , pp. 311± 331. Jasanoff, Sheila. 2007. Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton University Press. Kleinman, Daniel Lee and Abby J. Kinchy. 2003. “Why Ban Bovine Growth Hormone?: Science, Social Welfare, and the Divergent Biotech Policy Landscapes in Europe and the United States.” Science as Culture 12 (3): 375-414. Kleinman, Daniel Lee, and Abby Kinchy. 2007. “Against the Neoliberal Steamroller? The Biosafety Protocol and the Social Regulation of Agricultural Biotechnology.” Agriculture and Human Values 24(2): 195-206. Lehmbruch, G. and Schmitter, P. (1982) // Patterns of Corporatist Policy-Making //. London, UK : Sage Publications. Over the past ten years, development in nanotechnology has produced promising novel materials. However, the field has not developed any standards concerning nomenclature/ terminology; materials properties; testing, measurement and characterization procedures; and safety issues. The development of standards is necessary, not only for the establishment of the field but also for managing the possible environmental and health risks caused by the production and use of the new nano-materials. At the same time the development of the global market also makes the need for harmonization standards very important. A regulatory system is necessary in order to develop a common scientific language, and common rules concerning patents issues. Especially in the case of nanotechnology, where scientific issues concerning the frame of the field are still fuzzy, experts are the ones primarily responsible for the development of standards. My project will contribute and expand to the technology studies literature on standards and harmonization, since literature in the case of nanotechnology standards is absent. Literature although is rich as it concerns food and agriculture standards and harmonization practices as well as technology and environmental standards. Scholars have been noticing a new form of global environmental standards which need a new definition and a categorization, and are developed by different institutions like firms, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the industry because of economic globalization and pressure on industries for environmental protection (Angel, Hamilton, and Huber, 2007). Standards can be seen as a way to lower production costs, that’s the purpose product standards play ( Krislov, 1997). Standards are standards are the measures by which products, processes and producers are judged. But furthermore standards and their development cannot be viewed as just a technical issue anymore. They are procedures which engage technical aspects and processes but at the same time moral, social, economic, and power aspects. And in a global world discussion on standards has to be viewed in a different way taking under consideration all these new different aspects (Bingen & Busch, 2005). There are many ways of discussing about standards. Standards can be seen as forms of regulation as Brunsson and Jacobsson argue. They discuss standards as a form of regulation and argue that “standards generate a strong element of global order in the modern world” (Brunsson and Jacobsson 1, 2000). Busch on the other hand, argues that “grades and standards are ways of defining a moral economy, for defining what (who) is good and what is bad” (274). Busch is viewing the development of standards as an ethical debate where the basic values used to judge what is good or bad, accepted or not accepted are in contradiction (Bush 2000). Standards may serve a very important purpose in business strategy. As it concerns a new product’s success, the acceptance of a common standard across the industry “may be the single most important component of new product success.” (Grindley 1, 1995). Along the same lines Busch and Tanaka, analyze the connections of standards with markets and the economy, what they argue is that the development of universal monetary systems, measurements, etc. made possible the development of universal standards that apply to the global markets. The existence of standards, then, is what gives meaning to the measurements of economics (Busch and Tanaka, 1996). What is considered of great significance in the contemporary literature is the shift of viewing standards as a public issue to view them as a private sector manager. Reardon and Farina explore this issue and they argue that “standards should be seen as major issues of private sector managers, just as they already are for government policy makers” (414). The private standards may come to fill the gap of the public ones. But the establishment of private standards in the agricultural system may have opposing effects, like increasing the market size of a product or reducing the barriers for entry (Reardon and Farina, 2002). The same issue is argued by Reardon et al. in a discussion on privatization of standards that can be identified in the multinational firms, in the medium-large domestic firms, and in small firms (Reardon et al., 2001). Along the same lines, Busch and Bain, point out that the private sector has taken up the work of the standards’ developer. It proceeds faster than the public, doesn’t have to go through committees for approval, and relies on the market for its approval. What the authors argue is that “the rise of private regulatory forms is emerging out of a process of both public and private re-regulation and that these changes are occurring at both the global and national level” (Busch and Bain 340, 2004). Angel David, Hamilton Trina, and Huber Matthew. Global Environmental Standards for Industry. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2007. 32:295–316 Bingen, J. and L. Busch, eds. 2005. Agricultural Standards: The Shape of the Global Food and Fiber System. Dordrecht: Springer. Brunsson, N., Jacobsson, B. 2000. __A World of Standards.__ Oxford, Oxford University Press. Busch, L., Tanaka, K. (1996). “Rites of Passage: Constructing Quality in a Commodity Subsector.” __Science, Technology, & Human Values__**. 21** (1): 3-27 Busch, L. (2000). “The Moral Economy of Grades and Standards.” __Journal of Rular__ __ Studies __ **16:** 273-283. Busch, L., Bain, C. (2004). “New! Improved? The Transformations of the Global Agrifood System.” __Rular Sociology.__ **69**(3): 321-346. Grindley, P. 1995. __Standards, Strategy and Policy.__ Oxford, Oxford University Press. Krislov, Samuel. 1997. How Nations Choose Product Standards and Standards Change Nations. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Reardon, T., et al. (2001) “ Global Change in Agrifood Grades and Standards: Agribusiness Strategic Responses in Developing Countries.” __International Food__ __ and Agribusiness Management Review. __ **2** (3). Reardon, T., Farina, E. (2002). “The Rise of Private Food Quality and Safety Standards: Illustrations from Brazil.” __International Food and Agribusiness Management Review.__ **4:** 413-421
 * 1. Political Participation and Social Movements **
 * 2. Policy cultures--Comparative studies between Europe and the US **
 * 3. Technology studies literature on standards and harmonization **