French Regulatory Republicanism and the Risks of Genetically Engineered Crops

Public hostility to genetically engineered crops has created pressure to revise France's conventional regulatory model, in which electorally legitimated officials and selected experts make decisions in the absence of significant public input. To pick up on the wide array of concerns that motivate public unease, the French government has, since 1998, experimented with several varieties of participatory technology assessment. These experiments demonstrate a growing interest in political forms that favour greater participation, especially if these innovations can be made to simulate features of republican legitimacy like representativeness, neutrality, and systematically informed decision-making that nonetheless remains open to conflictual interpretations of technological developments. The task remains, however, of integrating the results of these new forums into the legislative process.