Democracy, rights and technological change Rob Hagendijk International School for Humanities and Social Sciences/Universiteit van Amsterdam PO Box 26, 1000 AA Amsterdam The Netherlands STAGE:

Video: Sections Introduction The sustainable tomato To protect the potato against fungi Pesticide-resistant corn Cholesterol-reducing milk Safe food with biotech? Rice against blindness

The video: Visuals and narrative format Formats Everyday life and GM The voice over Pop-up windows Experts Turn-taking

The video: Inbuilt citizenship Priorities Blind spots: Playing God, Trade agreements Consumer freedom, labeling, transparency Risk, uncertainty, and safety Environmental consequences Economic consequences Third World Starvation

Background and context Parliament initiates debate: July 1999 Exploratory phase: Late Autumn 2000 Framing: Autumn 2000-September 2001 Debate: Autumn 2001 Final report: January 2002 Parliamentary debate: Februari 2002

Conflicts Exploratory phase Design and governance Elaboration: Negotiated framing The start and the video The walk-out

Open debate !? “…I would like to keep it out of the sphere of the ‘believers’. On the one hand there are those who are convinced it will be beneficial to people and on the other hand there is Greenpeace, certain that it will lead us to the world’s destruction. Such people never convince one another.” (Chair Committee)

Dutch pragmatism Don’t grow it! Allow it, if labelled Freedom of choice &transparency Avoid farmer’s dependency More research on risk TWCs need regulatory science More information and deliberation

Aftermath Public opinion Parliamentary debate Newspapers/media Delegitimation of NGOs

Against NGO-arrogance “…our goal was not to chase them away, but to put them in offside position. …I am a member of almost all of these organizations, but I never received a letter at home in which we were asked for our opinion. This raises questions about their functioning … Their high-pitched ethical statements and moralizing is much more detached from what people think than they are willing to acknowledge. They are a bunch of diehard idealists”

A crises of representation Parliaments Social movements Mass media and civil society Opinion surveys Focus groups, consensus conferences etc.

Liberalism, democracy and agony “…it is vital for democratic politics to understand that liberal democracy results from the articulation of two logics which are incompatible in the last instance and that there is no way in which they could be perfectly reconciled.” (C. Mouffe) Democracy and market capitalism are like two persons bound in a tempestuous marriage that is riven by conflict, and yet endures because neither partner wishes to separate from the other…. The two exist in a kind of antagonistic symbiosis.” (R.Dahl)

Liberal democracy, technological change, and globalization Reconfiguring citizenship – science and technological change – rights, entitlements and participation – nation states and representation – market liberalism Public debates as political machines