Maria Paola Ferretti

Accountability or “Good Decisions”? The Competing Goals of Civil Society Participation in International Governance

Civil society participation in international and European governance is often promoted as a remedy to its much-lamented democratic deficit. We argue in this paper that this claim needs refinement because civil society participation may serve two quite different purposes: it may either enhance the democratic accountability of intergovernmental organisations and regimes, or the epistemic quality of rules and decisions made within them. In comparing the European Union and World Trade Organization (WTO) in the field of biotechnology regulation we find that many participatory procedures officially are geared towards the epistemic quality of regulatory decisions. In practice, however, these procedures provide little space for epistemic deliberation. Nevertheless, they often lead to enhanced transparency and hence improve the accountability of governance. We also find evidence confirming findings from the literature that the different roles assigned to civil society organisations as “watchdogs” and “deliberators” are at times difficult to reconcile. Our conclusion is that we need to acknowledge potential trade-offs between the two democratising functions of civil society participation and should be careful not to exaggerate our demands on civil society organisations.

What do civil society organisations expect from participation in science? Lessons from Germany and Spain on the issue of GMOs

Recent debates in science and technology studies, as well as more practical approaches to science policy both at national and European level, have stressed the relevance of citizen participation in the field of science. This paper investigates what some of the key actors in this debate, civil society organisations, expect from participation. The paper presents two case studies of civil society participation in the field of novel biotechnologies in Germany and in Spain. Despite the differences between the experiences of participation in these two countries, our study shows that current institutional approaches, which are inspired by the ‘democratisation of expertise’ perspective and set up essentially at the ‘downstream’ level, seem less promising than ‘upstream’ models of participation, which, in contrast, appear more meaningful from a ‘co-production of science’ framing. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Why Public Participation in Risk Regulation? The Case of Authorizing GMO Products in the European Union

In recent years there has been renewed interest in the participation of lay people in regulatory procedures. The debate peaked in the 1980s with the anti-nuclear movements and again more recently as a reaction to the food scandals of the mid-1990s. In the wake of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis there has been a proliferation of European Community rules on the production, processing and retailing of food products, along with the multiplication of scientific committees in order to cope with increased regulatory demand. Parallel to the increase in regulation, a number of normative questions have been raised. One of the most frequently raised questions is what place, if any, should lay people and their opinions be given in the regulative process, especially in cases where policy decisions rely heavily on scientific expertise (Bulmer, 1998; Gottweis, 1999; Radaelli, 1999; Liberatore and Funtowicz, 2003). This issue is often put in terms of ‘democratizing risk’, the idea that lay people should have their say on what risks they are willing to take and on the regulatory procedures to reduce such risks. Moreover, some (Hunold and Young, 1998) have argued that issues of risk mitigation and distribution across the population should be subject to democratic accountability. Much has been written on the pros and cons of strengthening democratic participation in institutions of risk regulation, yet the recent debate highlights the need to differentiate between various aspects and forms of participatory strategy (Joss and Brownlea, 1999; Rowe and Frewer, 2000; Klinke and Renn, 2002; Bora and Hauseldorf, 2006; Hansen, 2006). This article contributes to this debate and argues that more clarity on the goals of participation can lead to a better assessment of such strategies. In the literature, the demand for democratization of risk regulation procedures often conflates two distinct, although correlated, claims: Science as Culture Vol. 16, No. 4, 377–395, December 2007

Risk and Distributive Justice: The Case of Regulating New Technologies

There are certain kinds of risk for which governments, rather than individual actors, are increasingly held responsible. This article discusses how regulatory institutions can ensure an equitable distribution of risk between various groups such as rich and poor, and present and future generations. It focuses on cases of risk associated with technological and biotechnological innovation. After discussing various possibilities and difficulties of distribution, this article proposes a non-welfarist understanding of risk as a burden of cooperation.

Participatory Strategies in the Regulation of GMO Products in the EU

This chapter explores a potential ‘democratization of risk’ by examining the participatory strategies of the European Food Safety Agency’s Panel on the Regulation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO Panel). It examines the extent to which organized civil society and concerned citizens have the opportunity to influence decisions on the regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the European Union (EU). It considers the conditions of access and transparency that prevail in the current procedures of risk assessment and, by analyzing the documentary record of some recent cases, probes into the responsiveness of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) and the European Commission to people’s concerns as expressed through the institutional channels for participation.

Liberal Democratic Institutions and the Damages of Political Corruption

This article contributes to the debate concerning the identification of politically relevant cases of corruption in a democracy by sketching the basic traits of an original liberal theory of institutional corruption. We define this form of corruption as a deviation with respect to the role entrusted to people occupying certain institutional positions, which are crucial for the implementation of public rules, for private gain. In order to illustrate the damages that corrupt behaviour makes to liberal democratic institutions, we discuss the case of health care professionals’ abuse of their right to conscientious objection to abortion services. We show that the conscience clause can be instrumentally abused to sabotage democratically established public rules and thus exert undue private influence on their implementation. In this sense, from a liberal democratic perspective, institutional corruption is problematic because it is disruptive of such fundamental liberal ideals as the impartiality of public institutions and citizens’ political equality.

Risk imposition and freedom

Various authors hold that what is wrong with risk imposition is that being at risk diminishes the opportunities available to an agent. Arguably, even when risk does not result in material or psychological damages, it still represents a setback in terms of some legitimate interests. However, it remains to be specified what those interests are. This article argues that risk imposition represents a diminishment of overall freedom. Freedom will be characterized in empirical terms, as the range of unimpeded actions available to an agent. After briefly outlining the main characteristics of overall freedom as defended by Hillel Steiner and Ian Carter, the article shows that this notion is able to capture many of our intuitions about when and how risk imposition disadvantages an agent, without reference to welfare indicators. The article argues that if this non-welfarist perspective can be defended, then it would be easier to approach a number of applied questions about risk, including the questions of when risk imposition is permissible or legitimate, in which ways risk can be an object of distributive justice and how one can be compensated for being subject to a risk.

Social injustice, essays in political theory

Social injustice, essays in political theory, by Vittorio Bufacchi, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 216 pages, £50.00 Hardback, ISBN 9780230251601. In this volume Vittorio Bufacchi argues fo...