Ole Andreas Brekke

Population Biobanks: The Ethical Gravity of Informed Consent

The question of informed consent has been central to public and scholarly debates on research biobanking, as well as to regulatory efforts. We discuss why this concept has gained such a central position and argue that it has less to do with its adequacy as a regulatory tool than with its capacity as a deflecting concept, shifting the focus away from more serious, but at the same time less governable issues. While its main value for medical science lies in its function as a signifier of ‘normal’ and responsible scientific conduct, in politics it functions as an ‘emergency exit’, a way to remove fundamental problems from the public and political field without having to solve the unsolvable. The individualizing gaze of informed consent overshadows questions of a predominantly collective nature, such as possible broader socio-cultural changes brought about by biobank-based research. However, the notion of genetic solidarity or altruism, which has been offered as an alternative framework to informed consent, does not open up the space for political and public debate on the objectives and consequences of research biobanks, but rather puts a further lid on such debate, through defining medical research as an unconditional good in its own right.

Biosociality, biocitizenship and the new regime of hope and despair: interpreting “Portraits of Hope” and the “Mehmet Case”

The concepts of biocitizenship and biosociality, in many ways developed as a reaction to the former critique of genetification and fears of a return of eugenics, have gained a stronghold in much of the current debates on the social effects of modern-day genetics. In contrast to claims of a return to eugenics, the literature on biocitizenship highlights the new choice-enhancing possibilities involved in present-day biomedicine, underlining the break with past forms of biopower. In this analysis, hope becomes a life-inducing and vitalizing force, opening new avenues of civic participation and engagement. Most critics of this analysis have attacked the claims to novelty attributed to these concepts, arguing that more traditional forms of biopower remain as important as ever. In contrast, we argue that the biocitizenship literature underestimates the radical nature of this break with the past, ending up with a too narrow and one-sided interpretation of the ramifications of the new discourse of hope. On the basis of two different case stories, the “Portraits of Hope” campaign from California, USA and the “Mehmet Case” from Norway, we indicate an alternative “darker” reading of the new discourse of hope, arguing that its driving force is not so much future possibilities as present despair.

Sterilization policies, moral rehabilitation and the politics of amends

The article studies policy debates about coming to terms with historic sterilization policies in Germany, Norway, and the Czech Republic. Starting from the assumption that involuntary sterilization forms a double injury that both destroys a person’s reproductive faculty and attaches a stigma of inferior worth to the person, the article examines what – if anything – was framed as wrong about involuntary sterilization and whether the aspect of stigmatization and differential worth was addressed in these debates. It argues that a politics of amends can, in principle, revoke the stigma and provide moral rehabilitation but that governments were unwilling or reluctant to do so, particularly concerning stigmatization along notions of normality and fitness. Problematizations were largely confined to an unlawfulness frame and a group discrimination frame. Within the former, the logic of differential worth could not be addressed, within the latter only insofar as it disproportionately affected ethnoracially constructed groups but not individuals marked as ill, disabled or unfit.

Smart, but is It Sustainable? : The Importance of Reconciling Non-Technical Concerns in Grid-Development Policies

Electricity grids in Europe are currently undergoing numerous changes. New grid development projects are proposed everywhere. This is partly caused by the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) directive of 2009 that specifies national targets that all countries must achieve by 2020. In Norway the on-shore renewable share is already high — around 60 percent, but as an EEA (European Economic Area) country Norway has agreed to increase this share to 67.5 percent. In Sweden the target is 49 percent, but the government has published the ambition to reach a renewable target beyond 50 percent by 2020. As a consequence, a number of efforts are being made to stimulate renewables. From 2012, a joint certificate market has been established between Norway and Sweden and, for 2020, a target has been set of 26.4 TWh of renewable electricity production. The political commitment to be submitted in accordance with the RES Directive targets will be shared equally between Norway and Sweden, with 13.2 TWh each, but given the market orientation of the policy scheme the actual investment will be located where investors find it most attractive. There are a lot of opinions and much public discussion surrounding renewables (Toke, 2005; Wustenhagen et al., 2007), but without well-functioning electricity grids, electricity will never reach the market. In the last few years, investments in the upgrade and development of transmission lines have notably increased.