ABSTRACT
Both ‘governance’ and ‘sustainable development’ have become key terms in policy debates. These terms have particular salience to techno-scientific controversies in Europe, where protest has challenged the legitimacy of regulatory procedures and innovation priorities. In the case of genetically modified (GM) crops, for example, critics have counterposed ‘sustainable agriculture’, while agbiotech companies have appropriated the same term to promote their own products. As this chapter will argue, divergent views of sustainability underlie the conflicts over biotechnological innovation and regulation. Governments have extended regulatory procedures and public consultation, sometimes in the name of ‘governance’, which denotes broader forms of conflict management. I draw upon a case study of European efforts to govern conflicts over GM crops as a sustainability issue. A focus on the late 1990s provides a snapshot of longer term policy changes still underway.
