Expert-Based Policy or Policy-Based Expertise? Regulating GM Crops in Europe

The days have long passed when governments could simply defend safety claims by invoking ‘sound science’. Facing several food scandals since the mid-1990s, European risk regulation has faced illegitimacy problems. Before the BSE crisis erupted, for example, expert advice had downplayed important uncertainties and assumed that risk-management measures would be adequately implemented. Such advice was deployed to reassure the public, while allowing politicians to avoid full responsibility for decisions. As an EU report later noted,

“While being increasingly relied upon, however, expertise is also increasingly contested. ‘Traditional’ science is confronted with the ethical, environmental, health, e-conomic and social implications of ist technological applications. Scientific expertise must therefore interact and at times conflict with other types of expertise” (Liberatore 2001:6).