Abstract
Limits to Governance, edited by Catherine Lyall, Theo Papaioannou and James Smith, would serve as an excellent entry point into the literature on the New Life Sciences as well as public policy making. The book consists of 12 chapters, 10 of which discuss particular cases of policy making related to the New Life Sciences. The remaining chapters provide an overview and summary of the arguments raised throughout the book pertaining to governance within this context.
Governance is conceived of as the involvement of nongovernment actors during the creation of ruling or legislative frameworks (pp. 2–3). The book is driven by a sense that the governance process whereby a range of actors participate in constituting frameworks that are ultimately enforced by a government or state has its limitations (p. 3). In essence, the book details and elucidates a range of tensions and conflicts related to the government–governance continuum (p. 262) during policy making in the life sciences, specifically genomics, bioscience, and biotechnologies. The book demonstrates that conflicting interests between industry and the public mean that governments find it difficult to reconcile conflicting priorities, which in turn fuel the limitations of governance. The book is divided into sections related to the principles, processes, and people involved in governance in an attempt to demonstrate these limitations.
In illustrating the limits to governance related to the New Life Sciences, the authors of individual chapters present interesting cases connected to the UK Biobank, in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryonic research, pharmaceutical innovation, biological warfare or biosecurity, and genetically modified (GM) foods. Limitations identified include the unfair ‘distribution of opportunities and risks in genomics,’ the continued need for government control, and a North–South divide (p. 263). The context of chapters ranges from the developed to developing world, and highlighting the peculiarities between them. Although it uses a somewhat narrow lens of policy making related to the New Life Sciences, the book raises important questions in terms of the limits to governance. As a result, the book opens up to scrutiny the nature of contemporary democratic society, including the citizen experience.
The editors, however, fail to provide a critical way forward to these debates by arguing for nuance and duality in relation to the government–governance continuum that can only be applied, in their view, on a case-by-case basis (pp. 271–272). The four lessons for policy drawn by the editors –governance is dynamic, governance is context dependent, governance is political, and governance cannot stand alone (pp. 263–270) – belie the rich and significant findings found in this volume. This may be due to the fact that they see participative forms of policy making merely as fostering national competitiveness and encouraging public acceptance of new technologies (p. 11) rather than an inherent right of participation belonging to every citizen. Their meekness may be further tempered by the fact that they consider the life sciences to require ‘conventional command and control’ (p. 261) by a state, without questioning the democratic legitimacy of the state.
A meaningful theoretical contribution could, for example, have been garnered from Chapter 6, ‘Governments and the governance of bioscience as a “new security challenge” ’ (pp. 133–152), in which Paul Nightingale and Caitríona McLeish interrogate globalization theory with empirical evidence in biosecurity, demonstrating what is valuable and less so from the work of Ulrich Beck (1992). By critically interrogating relevant theory, Nightingale and McLeish extend the case-by-case doldrums (see Burawoy, 1998), opening up the debate of policy making in the New Life Sciences to the nature of decision making in contemporary modern states. Reviewing the chapters in light of Chapter 6 would add greatly to their value and potential with respect to social theory. Moreover, this could indicate fundamental ways in which participatory policy making or governance can be transformed to reflect the interests of all members of society, particularly given the potential for the policies ‘to have a significant impact on both wealth creation and the quality of life on a global scale’ (p. 11).
Neglecting to situate governance within conceptions and critiques of known power structures, despite acknowledging the ‘hierarchy in public-policy network of participation’ (p. 10) as well as not deepening conceptions of civil society leave one feeling a bit let down and empty given the richness of cases presented. Nevertheless, the book deserves a place on the shelf of all who wish to make a contribution to the field of policy making, be it within the life sciences or not. The book should also be read by those who wish to make a contribution to the nature of the state in late capitalist modernity, including the place of civil society and citizenship in democratic societies. Much can be learnt from the chapters in the volume with respect to facts about the New Life Sciences as well as how robust social theory is applied to the complexity of governance processes.