The Seeds of Dispute. A Gramscian analysis of how the strict EU policies on genetically modified organisms came about

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2018-08-13
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en
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Groundbreaking discoveries in the natural sciences do not only spark debates within de scientific community, but are also a challenge for policymakers since science creates facts that become political. Probably one of the most intensely led debates on how a society should deal with science is the controversy over the regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for food and feed within the EU. The political debate caused the EU to implement the strictest policies on GMOs of a major economic power worldwide. This thesis was set up to explain the strict content, form and scope of EU policy on GMOs. In order to answer the research question, a Gramscian theoretical framework was adopted to identify discourses, agents and the social relations of production behind the struggle. First of all, the empirical analysis revealed that the struggle circled around safety concerns for health & environment, the insufficiency of scientific evidence to prove that GMOs are safe and the economic consequences of contamination for non-GMO farmers. Secondly, those agents that were identified as relevant in the struggle were clustered into social forces which revealed a proand an anti-GMO group. Finally, the strict policies were identified as a result of hegemony accommodating with contesting forces rather than a completely new hegemonic constellation of classes. It can be concluded the struggle on the regulation of GMOs in the EU is a case of a weakened hegemonic discourse that incorporated the counter-hegemonic discourse into the still existent capitalist relations of production. The strict regulations on GMOs within Europe are ultimately a consequence of continuous agency of a social force that managed to fuse the interests of consumers, environmental NGOs and farmers, backed by EU member state governments that were willing to push forward the anti-GMO discourse within EU institutions
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen