The Limits to Governance: The Challenge of Policy-Making for the New Life Sciences

Does the state still frame debates about new technology? How can policy-makers ensure that we benefit from the health developments brought by genomics while satisfying both the expectations of society and the economic imperatives?This book offers a critique of the new governance agenda for science and innovation in the context of the life sciences, and particularly genomics. The authors argue that the governance of genomics presents policy-makers worldwide with a variety of new problems. Biotechnology promises a great deal but has in many respects still to deliver on these promises and concerns persist about risks, ethics and the north-south dimensions of this global endeavour.The backdrop to the book is the emergence of new governance structures and policy processes in Europe and North America over the past decade. The authors argue that, despite the political rhetoric about new governance approaches, the state's capacity to control debates about new technology endures. They suggest that, in the face of the multi-faceted policy and regulatory situation that applies to the life sciences, we need to consider the situation as a form of government-governance continuum where different aspects of genomics and life science technologies may sit at different points - and indeed co-exist. Thinking about governance and government as a duality can help to offer some valuable lessons for policy.