ABSTRACT
The regulation of biotechnology has, from the early days of the 1970s, been preoccupied with the problem of how to establish legitimate and reliable regulations. Hence, political bewilderment is a key characteristic of the area of GMOs. The uncertainties of risks in biotechnological innovations have made scientific knowledge essential for decision makers in the area of GMOs. Political decision making is thus exposed to the very same scientific uncertainty that it tries to diminish in regulatory decisions concerning GMOs. The political discourse that has emerged as a consequence of establishing a European regulatory framework for GMOs has not been without problems. During the first struggling efforts in the early 1980s, the GMO legislation has experienced serious crises. As a result, it has been rearticulated, reshaped, and reformulated in conjunction with a changing discursive ‘landscape’ where issues such as, for example, risks, precaution, labelling, and coexistence have been dominant concepts in the discourse.
