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From Mad Cows to GMOs: The Side Effects of Modernization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Patricia A. Stapleton
Patricia A. Stapleton*
Affiliation:
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
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Abstract

Ulrich Beck's Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity provides a lens through which we can analyze contemporary debates over risk regulation of agricultural biotechnology. This article establishes the political and cultural context into which genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were introduced in the European Union, by reviewing the HIV-contaminated blood scandal, mad cow crisis, and dioxin contamination episode. These public health and food safety scandals exemplify the side effects of modernization as outlined by Beck. Beck also predicted the development of a solidarity arising from the public's anxiety over the global distribution of modernization's risks. The impact of these cases on risk regulation illustrates the political and social reaction to the invisible, global risks of late modernity. The subsequent response to this reaction in European risk regulation further demonstrates the tension between a globalizing market and public anxiety in risk society.

Type
Special Issue on Regulating New and Emerging Technologies
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 517 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016

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References

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