Regulatory science in ctnbio: technopolitical deliberations and implications for brazilian democracy
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Abstract
What are the factors that lead to the "risk assessment technology" of scientific advisory committees becoming an authority among actors involved in political decision-making processes? On the other hand, why do regulatory processes such as these, strongly committed to rational decisions and the use of expert knowledge, so often fail to produce consensus on the use of risk science? This article addresses these questions which, despite having been formulated almost 30 years ago by Sheila Jasanoff in the book The Fifth Branch (1990), are still the subject of current reflection. For this, the National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio) is taken as a case study. Through documentary analyses, interviews and observations, the research investigates what and how the processes of legitimisation and delegitimisation of the risk analyses produced by CTNBio take place and, in particular, the regulatory deliberations derived from them. The research analyzes the model adopted for biosafety policies that gave centrality and sovereignty to the commission to indicate how it seeks to resolve the historical tension between technocratic and democratic values that has guided the transgenesis process in Brazil during the last decade. This raises questions not only about the legitimacy of this risk assessment model of GM agriculture, but especially about the risks of this system to Brazilian democracy itself.
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