A presentation on our Rethinking Regulation project, given at the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference in Potsdam, September 2009. For more information on the project, see http://www.steps-centre.org/ourresearch/regulation.html

1. Regulatory harmonisation and diverse local realities: Contending framings and transnational risks around agricultural biotechnology Patrick van Zwanenberg a Email: [email_address] Adrian Ely a, ,Adrian Smith a , Ding Shijun b , Jin Chenggang c , Chen Chuanbo d and Liang Xiaoyun c Andres Lopez e , Laura Goldberg e and Maria Eugenia Fazio e a STEPS Centre, SPRU, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK b Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, China c Beijing Normal University, China d Beijing Renmin University, China e Fundacion Cenit, Argentina Presentation to the ECPR Conference, Potsdam, 10-12 September 2009

4. Regulation within a systems heuristic 3. 4. 2. Framings of the ‘system’ 1. Regulation 2 Regulation 1 Regulatory interventions Poor user issues ‘ system’ (e.g. socio-technical regime)

8. Seeds Case Study – Chaco Province, Argentina Regulator worlds (local level): Local regulator is poorly resourced and only oversees formal market players; Monsanto has contracts with commercial farmers - but unable to enforce Regulator worlds (national level): National regulations concerned only with formal seed varieties and supply channels (reflects domestic commercial agricultural framing of regulatory problem and cotton production systems) Regulators often assume farmers can choose to avoid informal markets In practice negligible regulatory assurances over risks and benefits of seed choice and use for small farmers tied to informal markets (98% of cotton producers) Regulator worlds (international level): Concerned primarily with legal implementation/capacity-building; not on-the-ground implementation; no channels for gathering information