Rethinking regulation: seeds and drugs in China & Argentina
Project concept note (pdf 200kb)
Rethinking regulation
The project compares the regulation of two technologies - transgenic cotton seeds and antibiotics - with the way those technologies are experienced amongst poorer communities in rural Argentina and rural China.
We will use the findings from these case studies to explore the implementation challenges facing regulators; and to understand the kinds of inclusive regulatory designs that can incorporate issues relevant to poorer communities. As such, we wish to understand how to improve regulatory capacity, and identify fruitful ways of rethinking regulation. We intend this project to provide insights of help to policy-makers and other stakeholders involved in regulatory capacity-building efforts.
Addressing specific cases in the agricultural and health domains in specific settings in Argentina and China, this project will address the gap between current assumptions about regulation - based often on the norms of OECD countries - and the more complex realities in diverse, dynamic contexts.
In a context of economic globalisation, new pharmaceutical, agricultural and water technologies are, today, often being supplied through trans-national as well as national research and development chains. Yet global, harmonised regulations and regimes often do not map neatly onto diverse localities in rapidly changing economies, giving rise to many unintended consequences. This project will trace the relationships between global and local forms of governance and regulation, asking how, for specific issues and settings, global and national regulatory regimes actually work, or fail to work, in practice.
We will explore the interactions between formal and informal regulation that may emerge to fill the vacuum, whether based on citizen action and social networks, everyday means of getting-by, or semi-legal activities. Exploring who gains and who loses from these interactions, and their implications for emergent ecological dynamics - for instance as poorly-regulated drugs threaten to provoke new and devastating resistances - this project will work towards identifying alternative regulatory pathways that work for Sustainability.
Research update - spring 2008
The first stage of fieldwork is underway, which is trying to understand how seeds andantibiotics are accessed and used in poorer communities. We also wish to understand the issues of concern in those communities, especially those relating to the regulation of these artifacts. This knowledge will inform the second stage of the fieldwork, to be completed over the summer, which is to interview the regulators at local through to international levels responsible for controlling these artifacts.
STEPS members working on this project
- Adrian Smith Convenor a.g.smith@sussex.ac.uk
- Gerry Bloom Research Fellow g.bloom@ids.ac.uk
- Adrian Ely Research Fellow a.v.ely@sussex.ac.uk
- Patrick Van Zwanenberg Research Fellow
P.F.Van-Zwanenberg@sussex.ac.uk
STEPS partners on this project
- Zhonghan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, China
Shijun Ding dingshijun2006@yahoo.com.cn
- Institute of Social Development and Public Policy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Chenggang Jin cgjin2005@126.com
- Chen Chuanbo, Renmin University of China
- Centro de Investigaciones para la Transformación ( CENIT), Buenos Aires, Argentina Tel: (5411) 4815-1310
Andres Lopez anlopez@fund-cenit.org.ar
Laura Goldberg goldberglau@gmail.com
Maria Eugenia Fazio meugenia.fazio@gmail.com
Roberto Bisang roberto.bisang@cepal.org
www.flickr.com
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Related research and events
- Watch Gerry Bloom, STEPS health convenor, talk about the health challenges facing people in rural China
- 20-23 August 2008: Adrian Smith, Adrian Ely and Patrick Van Zwanenberg - "RethinkingRegulation: Addressing Diverse User Realities in the Governance of RiskyTechnologies, paper presented at the 4S-EASST Conference, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
- 16-19 October 2008: Adrian Smith - 'Rethinking Regulation: Harmonising Tendencies, Globalising Complexities, and the Challenges of Instituting Priorities for Poorer Communities' 7th International Science Conference of the International Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, Delhi.
- Adrian Ely blogs on rethinking regulation from China
- Adrian Smith blogs from Resilience 2008, and more
- Reframing Resilience The STEPS Centre's theme this year is resilience; engaging with resilience thinking and exploring practical implications for policy in agriculture, water, peri-urban dynamics, epidemics and regulation.
- Adrian Smith gave a presentation about STEPS and the Rethinking Regulation Project to members of IDRC-Latin America and the Universidad de la Republica in Montevideo, Uruguay on 13 December 2007. The presentation - Caminos sociales, tecnologícos y ambientales hacia la sostenibilidad - forms part of a week-long visit to research partners at Fundacion Cenit in Buenos Aires.
- Adrian Smith blogs on politics and governance in sustainable socio-technical transitions
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'Caminos sociales, tecnologícos y ambientals hacia la sostenibilidad' Presentation to IDRC, Montevideo, Uruguay, 13 December 2007 - Adrian Smith and Paddy van Zwanenberg.
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'Technologies spiralling out of control? The politics and ethics of risk regulation in agricultural biotechnology' Co-convener of this panel at the Development Studies Association Conference, University of Sussex, 18-20 September 2007, with Esha Shah
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Grassroots innovations for sustainable development: Towards a new research and policy agenda. Adrian Smith and Gill Seyfang
Environmental Politics 1 August 2007 - Translating Sustainabilities between Green Niches and
Socio-Technical Regimes. Adrian Smith
Technology Analysis & Strategic Management. 01 July 2007 - STEPS Centre Symposium panels at the DSA Conference
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Farmer planting nursery in Hubei province, China / Adrian Ely |
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