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Against the neoliberal steamroller? The Biosafety Protocol and the social regulation of agricultural biotechnologies

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Abstract

Through a discursive and organizational analysis we seek to understand the Biosafety Protocol and the place of socioeconomic regulation of agricultural biotechnology in it. The literature on the Protocol has been fairly extensive, but little of it has explored debates over socioeconomic regulation during the negotiation process or the regulatory requirements specified in the final document. This case is especially important at a time when the spread of neoliberalism is increasingly associated with deregulation, because it sheds light on the conditions under which circumvention of the market is deemed legitimate and socio-economic regulation of agricultural technology is possible.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was first presented at the meetings of the Rural Sociology Society in 2004. Support for the research on which this paper is based was provided by a Hatch grant from the United States Department of Agriculture and the University of Wisconsin College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. The authors would like to thank Robyn Autry for her research assistance and her comments on an earlier version of this paper. In addition, the authors benefited from the comments provided by reviewers for this journal and Laura B. DeLind.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA

    Daniel Lee Kleinman & Abby J. Kinchy

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    Abby J. Kinchy

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  1. Daniel Lee Kleinman
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  2. Abby J. Kinchy
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Correspondence to Daniel Lee Kleinman.

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Daniel Lee Kleinman is a professor in the Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he is also affiliated with the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies and the Integrated Liberal Studies Program. He is the author and editor of a number of books, including Impure Cultures: University Biology and the World of Commerce (2003).

Abby J. Kinchy is a PhD candidate in the Departments of Sociology and Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her current research examines the controversies surrounding the genetic “contamination” of Mexican maize and Canadian canola.

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Kleinman, D.L., Kinchy, A.J. Against the neoliberal steamroller? The Biosafety Protocol and the social regulation of agricultural biotechnologies. Agric Hum Values 24, 195–206 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-006-9049-6

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