Filippa Lentzos

Governing insecurity: contingency planning, protection, resilience

Abstract How should we understand the politics of security today? This article addresses this question from one particular perspective, that of ‘biosecurity’. It examines contemporary strategies for managing biorisks in three European states: France, Germany and the United Kingdom. We suggest that the framing of threat and response differs, even within Europe, and that one can identify three different configurations: contingency planning, protection and resilience. Each of these embodies a significantly different way of reconciling fundamental imperatives for those who would govern a liberal society today – the imperative of freedom and the imperative of security.

Rationality, risk and response: A research agenda for biosecurity

This article considers how threats become constituted as problems requiring policy responses, and how one might account for such problematizations and responses. Focusing specifically on the threat from bioterrorism, it draws on a broadly constructivist approach to risk, and highlights how ideas around political rationalities, styles of thought, forms of risk and frameworks of knowledge can be useful in thinking about emerging biosecurity policies. It suggests that a comparative study of Britain and the United States might help to clarify how the threat of bioterrorism is being constructed by various groups, how support for particular ‘framings’ of the threat is being mobilized and taken up in policy networks, and how this is linked to different courses of action in response to the possibility of bioterrorism.

Synthetic Biology and Biosecurity: Challenging the “Myths”

Synthetic biology, a field that aims to “make biology easier to engineer,” is routinely described as leading to an increase in the “dual-use” threat, i.e., the potential for the same scientific research to be “used” for peaceful purposes or “misused” for warfare or terrorism. Fears have been expressed that the “de-skilling” of biology, combined with online access to the genomic DNA sequences of pathogenic organisms and the reduction in price for DNA synthesis, will make biology increasingly accessible to people operating outside well-equipped professional research laboratories, including people with malevolent intentions. The emergence of do-it-yourself (DIY) biology communities and of the student iGEM competition has come to epitomize this supposed trend toward greater ease of access and the associated potential threat from rogue actors. In this article, we identify five “myths” that permeate discussions about synthetic biology and biosecurity, and argue that they embody misleading assumptions about both synthetic biology and bioterrorism. We demonstrate how these myths are challenged by more realistic understandings of the scientific research currently being conducted in both professional and DIY laboratories, and by an analysis of historical cases of bioterrorism. We show that the importance of tacit knowledge is commonly overlooked in the dominant narrative: the focus is on access to biological materials and digital information, rather than on human practices and institutional dimensions. As a result, public discourse on synthetic biology and biosecurity tends to portray speculative scenarios about the future as realities in the present or the near future, when this is not warranted. We suggest that these “myths” play an important role in defining synthetic biology as a “promissory” field of research and as an “emerging technology” in need of governance.

Synthetic Biology in the Social Context: The UK Debate to Date

The scientific community has shown unusual leadership in early and proactive identification of some of the social, environmental, ethical and security concerns raised by synthetic biology. The current influx of social scientists focusing their attention on the technology has, however, broadened the concerns and challenges of synthetic biology and, to some extent, altered the focus of the debate about social context. This article provides a snapshot of some of the main events and discussions that have taken place in the United Kingdom over the last few months on socio-political aspects of synthetic biology.

Countering misuse of life sciences through regulatory multiplicity

Drawing on concepts from the risk and regulation literature, this article contributes three points to the ongoing policy discussions on how best to address potential misuse of the life sciences: 1) Any new regulatory measure introduced must build on the regulatory measures and influences already present in the regulatory space; 2) The coercive, normative and mimetic modes of regulation all have important roles to play and truly effective regulatory frameworks will couple coercive modes of regulation with both normative and mimetic modes; 3) Overlapping regulatory measures for life science oversight at successive stages in the R&D process are necessary to deal with the contextual variation of biological laboratories. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Negotiating the dynamics of uncomfortable knowledge: The case of dual use and synthetic biology

Institutions need to ignore some knowledge in order to function. This is “uncomfortable knowledge” because it undermines the ability of those institutions to pursue their goals (Rayner, 2012). We identify three bodies of knowledge that are relevant to understandings of the dual use threat posed by synthetic biology but are excluded from related policy discussions. We demonstrate how these “unknown knowns” constitute uncomfortable knowledge because they disrupt the simplified worldview that underpins contemporary discourse on the potential misuse of synthetic biology by malign actors. We describe how these inconvenient truths have been systematically ignored and argue that this is because they are perceived as a threat by organisations involved in the promotion of synthetic biology as well as by those involved in managing biosecurity risks. This has led to a situation where concerns about the biosecurity threat posed by synthetic biology are not only exaggerated, but are, more importantly, misplaced. This, in turn, means that related policies are misdirected and unlikely to have much impact. We focus on the dynamics of discussions about synthetic biology and dual use to demonstrate how the same “knowns” that are denied or dismissed as “unknown knowns” in certain circumstances are sometimes mobilised as “known knowns” by the same category of actors in a different context, when this serves to sustain the goals of the individuals and institutions involved. Based on our own experience, we argue that negotiating the dynamics of uncomfortable knowledge is a difficult, but necessary, component of meaningful transdisciplinary collaborations.

Managing biorisks: Considering codes of conduct

The misuse of biological research is increasingly becoming a prominent policy concern. One regulatory measure that has gained considerable support over the last few years in response to this is voluntary self-governance by the scientific community, and in particular codes of conduct. This article charts the rise of the policy debate on codes, highlighting the involvement of the scientific community. Shifting the focus from policy to practice, it explores the effectiveness of codes of conduct as a regulatory measure by examining our experiences of how another voluntary self-governance regime in the biosciences has worked in practice. Noting limitations with voluntary self-governance as a regulatory tool to prevent misuse, this article includes a reflection on the attention paid to codes of conduct in policy discussions, arguing that there are at least three possible interpretations.

Strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention confidence-building measures: Toward a cycle of engagement

Central to the compliance structure of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) are the confidence-building measures—the means by which States Parties disclose information annually. Improving this process is one of the key agenda items garnering a great deal of interest among State Parties and non-governmental organizations leading up to the Seventh BWC Review Conference in December. This article considers the challenges of enforcing the measures and the current efforts to strengthen them. The author presents additional approaches to enhance these measures and to build greater confidence in national compliance with the BWC, arguing particularly that civil society involvement and periodic, collective reviews of submissions have essential roles to play.

Synthetic biology, security and governance

The twenty-first century has witnessed an increasing confluence of rapidly advancing science and its embodiment in practical technologies, an extensive global diffusion of the knowledge and capabilities associated with those developments, and a seemingly unending shift in the international security environment. The scope and intensity of these interactions in the life sciences have generated concern about security risks stemming from possible misuse. This lecture focuses on one of the key emerging life science technologies of concern, gene synthesis, and considers how the new risks and challenges it poses for governance can best be managed.

The Performativity of Constructed Uncertainty: Military Money and Secrecy in Biology

In the fall of 1957, a polished metal sphere, 23 inches in diameter and launched from Soviet soil, began its orbit around the Earth, passing over American skies approximately every 96 minutes and initiating the space age, a space race, and a new era in the long struggle to maintain American military and technological superiority. Starting DARPA was one of the pivotal choices our Nation made in the wake of Sputnik,