The limits of regulatory convergence: globalization and GMO politics in the south

Abstract

Is globalization promoting regulatory convergence in agricultural biotechnology policies in the South? This article examines the nature and limits of regulatory convergence in the field of agri-biotechnology and investigates the effects that international forces have on biotechnology and biosafety policies in developing countries. Based on detailed case studies of Mexico, China and South Africa this article shows that these three leading biotechnology countries in the South are exposed to powerful international influences but are responding to the regulatory challenges of genetically modified organisms (GMO) adoption in distinctive ways. The existing regulatory polarization between US and EU biotechnology approaches has not forced a convergence around either of these two international models. GMO policies in the South do not simply follow the binary logic of the US-EU regulatory conflict. Instead, they integrate elements from both regulatory approaches and are steering a course that suggests substantial regulatory diversity in the South. The globalization of biotechnology thus goes hand in hand with regulatory diversity in the developing world. Furthermore, regulatory polarization between the EU and US has helped to open up political space in key developing countries.

Convergence More or Less: Why Do Practices Vary as They Diffuse?

“…In their study on the limits of regulatory convergence, Falkner and Gupta () asked why key developing countries have adopted divergent policies on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). They describe how the GMO policy field is characterized by two competing models, the EU precautionary approach and United States' (US) sound science approach.…”

“…In a recent article on patterns of policy convergence in the international system, Drezner () shows how the existence of two (diverse) sources can lead to a polarization of the adopting population as adopters converge toward one of the two nodes. Falkner and Gupta's () work on GMO policies, as discussed on page 5, also demonstrates how the existence of multiple, diverse sources creates opportunities for adopters to combine models in various ways, which can then give rise to diversity among them.…”

Travelling risks: How did nanotechnology become a risk in India and South Africa?

“…And in South Africa, information about the health risks of nuclear materials was actively withheld from the workforce in the mines up until the late 1990s (McCulloch 2005;Hecht 2012). Certainly risk discourses have emerged in India and South Africa in the case of other technologies, such as agricultural biotechnology (Damodaran 1999;Cloete, Nel, and Theron 2006;Falkner and Gupta 2009) but the absence of similar discourses in cases of technologies that are firmly understood in terms of risk in Europe and North America demonstrates this cannot be taken for granted.…”

Building a Venture Capital Market in Vietnam: Diffusion of a Neoliberal Market Strategy to a Socialist State

“…Scholars have, however, called for greater "inside-out" investigation of domestic factors on diffusion, or transmutation, outcomes (see Painter, 2005;Yeo and Painter, 2011). This line of research has also uncovered how the multiplicity of source 588 Robyn Klingler-Vidra models (see Falkner and Gupta, 2009) or the domestic context (see Weyland, 2006;Yeo and Painter, 2011) may lead to divergent, rather than convergent, policy outcomes. In an extension of the work of these authors, this article employs a policy diffusion framework that gives equal priority to domestic and international factors in its investigation of the sources of Vietnam's unique VC policy approach.…”