Governing dual-use knowledge: From the politics of responsible science to the ethicalization of security

Abstract

Fears of malicious non-state actors and potentially dangerous research have given rise to new efforts to secure science against misuse. With the rapid advancements of science, what receives attention in security politics is how to oversee not only material and technology but also knowledge. This article explores the emerging security governance of knowledgeable practices in life sciences and critically reflects on its possible implications. The article first contextualizes the current understanding of the dual-use dilemma in life sciences in prior discourse on science–security relations and argues that security concerns have converged with ethical dilemmas related to the governing of science. Drawing on critical theory, security studies and science studies, it then conceptualizes dual use as a problem of organizing circulations and suggests that policing scientific knowledge through the establishment of a ‘culture of responsibility’ can be understood as a part of broader shifts towards the subjectification of knowledge. Using examples from life sciences, the article analyses how practices of knowledge production and circulation are adjusted to the logic of security. The article concludes that the converging political rationalities and governmental techniques of responsible science and security risk management, understood as an ‘ethicalization’ of security, affect the politicization of security expertise, prospects of resistance and the democratic accountability of science.

Keywords

Bioterrorism critical theory dual use ethics knowledge science

Introduction

In October 2014, the United States declared a moratorium on so-called gain-of-function research involving highly pathogenic viruses. The moratorium was justified on the basis of safety and security concerns: arguing that ‘the risks and benefits of gain-of-function research must be evaluated … in order to determine which types of studies should go forward and under what conditions’, the US government stopped new funding of such research and encouraged scientists to voluntarily pause ongoing studies of this type (US Government, 2014a). This decision was made amid broader efforts to manage risks associated with so-called dual-use research in life sciences. Attempts to regulate dual-use research in life sciences have been supported since the 1990s, yet gained new vigour after the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent anthrax letter incidents in the USA in 2001. The fear that research and innovations could be misused ‘by hostile individuals or nations’ for creating ‘the next generation of biological weapons’ (National Research Council, 2004: 1) motivated many countries to develop new guidelines to oversee potentially dangerous research. From a security studies perspective this development raises many questions: How do the attempts to strike a balance between scientific openness and national security ‘in the age of terrorism’ redefine science–security relations? How does scientific knowledge become subject to security governance? And how does this dynamic affect the links among scientific knowledge, security expertise and political decision? Drawing on these broader puzzles, this article seeks to explore the rationalities underlying the emerging governance of knowledgeable practices in life sciences and to point out their possible implications for the practices of science and security. Approaching the topic from critical security studies and linking it with science and technology studies, the article unpacks the security logic behind the governance of dual-use research in life sciences and argues that it exemplifies a novel type of security governance, based on converging political rationalities and governmental techniques of responsible science and security risk management. The article suggests understanding this trend as an ‘ethicalization’ of security and discusses the meanings and implications of situating securitization in the rhetoric of ethics and practices of scientific self-governance.

Biotechnologies are a dynamically evolving field, but their benefits for human health and welfare are increasingly contrasted with possible side-effects, including the risk of misuse. To prevent the conversion of life sciences into ‘death sciences’ (Atlas and Dando, 2006: 277), the United States established a new category of research that is subject to specific regulation. This ‘dual-use research of concern’ is defined as

life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel, or national security. (US Government, 2014b: 3)

In comparison with an earlier version of this definition (National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), 2007a: 17), the reference to national security is new, which demonstrates the issue’s growing salience. As both definitions further suggest, what is seen to have a dual-use potential and thus becomes subject to security governance is scientific knowledge (see Revill and Jefferson, 2013; Tucker, 2012). In the attempt to ‘[keep] science in the right hands’ (Noble, 2013), the practices of science governance start to accommodate more and more the concerns related to national security.

This article brings the debate on regulating life sciences to critical security studies and situates it within a broader research effort problematizing contemporary security rationalities and practices. Accordingly, it relates to the critical research that looks at the implications of techno-scientific progress in biosciences for contemporary societies (e.g. Dillon and Lobo-Guerrero, 2008; Rose, 2007). However, apart from in studies that focus on the new links between public health and the politics of security (Elbe, 2010; Lakoff and Collier, 2008), security concerns related to the developments in biosciences are typically dealt with in the context of proliferation risks related to the rise of non-state actors (Atlas and Dando, 2006; Chyba and Greninger, 2004). The problems of regulating ‘dual-use’ research in life sciences is extensively discussed in policy-oriented research (e.g. Lentzos, 2008; McLeish and Nightingale, 2007; Rappert and Gould, 2009; Rappert and McLeish, 2007), but works critically reflecting on the links among terrorism, biological weapons and scientific innovations are rather rare (see Caduff, 2012; Cooper, 2006).

The current approach to the regulation of life sciences may be seen to resonate with broader trends in political governance discussed in critical security studies, such as the widening of security (see e.g. Buzan et al., 1998) and the adoption of security practices in new fields (Elbe, 2010; Huysmans, 2006). However, the present article moves beyond more general debates about how the ‘war on terror’ affects science and academia (see Carvalho and Downing, 2010) and looks specifically at a trend towards making scientific knowledge a new subject of governance and regulating it under the logic of security (see Stehr, 2005). The article approaches the dilemma of control over ‘dual-use’ knowledge as a problem of organizing circulations and explores the emerging system of knowledge governance in life sciences that is based on scientific responsibility. Through this initial exploration of the topic, the article offers a new perspective on what notions of security the practices of responsible science embody and seeks thus to contribute to the dialogue between political science and science and technology studies (see e.g. Mayer et al., 2014).

The article proceeds as follows. First, it contextualizes the current dual-use dilemma within social research on modern life sciences and earlier debates on science–security relations. Second, it conceptually explores the phenomenon of policing scientific knowledge and, drawing on empirical examples from life sciences, analyses how security logic informs the changing governance of knowledge. Finally, to better comprehend the convergence between security and ethics, the article introduces the concept of ‘ethicalization’ of security and discusses its meaning and implications.

(Bio)science and (bio)security

The challenges of modern life sciences

Bio-innovations are of great interest to social sciences. Many scholars look at how developments in medicine, biotechnology and life sciences relate to broader shifts in social and political institutions and practices, focusing especially on the attempts to overcome the natural limits of life and growth (e.g. Cooper, 2008; Petersen and Lupton, 1996). In this context, Rose and Rabinow speak of the ‘molecularization’ of life, which is characterized by the changing understanding of the human body and its governance and molecule-centred rather than population-centred biopower and biopolitics (Rabinow and Rose, 2006; Rose, 2007). Dillon and Lobo-Guerrero (2008) bring this debate to security studies and discuss what it means to replace population as a referent object with ‘life’.

While a certain order of biological life is supported through novel forms of governmentality, different political technologies and powers are employed in the governance of an undesired molecular disorder (Braun, 2007; Cooper, 2006). Contextualized in the discourses on globalization and unpredictable risks, what becomes of particular concern is a broad range of naturally occurring as well as man-made biological risks and threats, which are brought together under the notion of biosecurity (Lakoff and Collier, 2008; Rappert and Gould, 2009). Biosecurity, though, links molecular biopolitics with traditional security logic and manifestations of sovereign power, as it ‘[justifies] a continuous state of emergency at the level of political life by reference to a continuous state of emergence at the level of molecular life’ (Braun, 2007: 23). This logic prominently resonates in two areas: public health and biological weapons. The former has been affected by the fear of dangerous pathogens whose dissemination is made easier by the ‘forces of globalization’ and the intensified circulations of bodies. In this context, scholars have focused on the rise of (global) health security and scrutinized the changing connections among medicine, public health and security politics (Elbe, 2010; Howell, 2014; McInnes and Lee, 2006). The latter has reflected this rationality with an even closer emphasis on security.

Biological weapons have gained greater prominence on the political agenda since 2001 as a part of broader concerns that non-state actors may seek to obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. In fact, the fears of bioterrorism precede 9/11 (Guillemin, 2005; Henderson, 1999), but the securitization of global terrorism and the evolution in infectious disease research reinforced these concerns. The subsequent US-driven ‘biological turn in the war on terror’ (Cooper, 2006) shifted the attention from state programmes and interstate politics of biological disarmament to the individual level and risks from non-state actors. As part of this move, what started to receive more attention was how to secure potentially dangerous research and know-how – in other words, how to minimize the risk that ‘the generation and dissemination of scientific knowledge … could be misapplied for biological weapons development and production’ (Atlas and Dando, 2006: 276).

The issue has so far gained attention in policy-oriented literature, which discusses the changing meanings of and attitudes towards biological threats (e.g. Rappert and Gould, 2009; Wenger and Wollenmann, 2007) and focuses on how to govern life sciences, highlighting especially the role of biosecurity education and greater social control over biosciences (Lentzos, 2008; Rappert, 2010; Rappert and McLeish, 2007; Tucker, 2012). Critical works in this regard, however, are quite rare and either argue against hyping the threat of bioterrorism (Wright, 2004) or downplay the narrative on deskilling of biology by pointing out the role of tacit knowledge that is needed for the development of bioweapons (Ouagrham-Gormley, 2012; Vogel, 2013).

Science governance in the context of science–security relations

Fears that research and innovation could be used for malign purposes are not new, as stories of ‘mad, bad, and dangerous’ scientists in popular culture demonstrate (Frayling, 2013). However, with the changing nature of science, politics and political violence, conceptions of how science may be misused and consequently how it should be secured against such misuse are undergoing great changes (see Godin, 2015; Shapin, 2008). This section briefly demonstrates this dynamic through three examples, which also help contextualize the current debate on bioterrorism and science governance.

The first example refers to the debate about the role of science in the security apparatus of the modern state. This debate was fuelled in the 1940s amid broader discussions about the moral integrity of scientists and their responsibility for the development of nuclear weapons. Having realized the destructive potential of new technologies, scientists sought to create a more informed and responsible social environment for the use of scientific knowledge. A group of leading scientists that included Albert Einstein, Hans Bethe and Niels Bohr publicly campaigned for the international regulation of nuclear energy, and a broader group of concerned scientists advocated for greater public control over emerging technologies through the establishment of policy-oriented research on weapons of mass destruction, which has been prominently published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Grodzins and Rabinowitch, 1963). This debate was important especially from two perspectives: first, it opened up the discussion on the social responsibility of scientists, particularly in terms of ‘protecting science from the state’; and second, it gave rise to unprecedented political activity on the part of scientists. Both the public engagement and the critical ethos associated with this generation of scientists, however, considerably declined as the Cold War proceeded (Shapin, 2008).

The second example draws on efforts to achieve a balance between national security and scientific openness during the Cold War. Reflecting the evolving rationalities of national security, the fears that science may be misused played out specifically in the politics of protecting military technologies from foreign espionage. Dangerous materiel, technologies and research activities were clearly delimited and subjected to specific regulation under the logic of ‘command and control’ governance, leading to the division between civilian and military/‘secret’ science (Balmer, 2013). However, controlling the flow of research information became more and more difficult as the goal of maintaining technological supremacy, which has been an argument for maximizing scientific freedom and removing any obstacles to scientific and technological progress, needed to be weighed against the fear that open scientific communication could be used by adversaries to gain military advantage (see e.g. National Research Council, 1983). Life sciences were, nonetheless, excluded from these considerations and became subject to security concerns only during the 1990s, in connection with a rising focus on terrorism, and then even more forcefully after 2001, as US security politics was reoriented towards new forms of political violence and new vulnerabilities (National Research Council, 2004). This securitization of life sciences also made it possible to revise the dichotomy of classified vs. unclassified research and to introduce new regulatory practices in a much broader area of ‘sensitive but unclassified’ research (Masco, 2010).

The current debate in life sciences focuses on how to secure research and innovation in life sciences from their possible misuse by unknown and unpredictable actors. Although situated within the context of the ‘war on terror’, these concerns follow in fact older debates about the rise of biology in modern societies and the need to regulate biotechnologies. These debates can be traced to the 1970s and the broader discourse on systemic vulnerability, when the emergence of genetic engineering stirred fears of potential hazards and side-effects from this novel field of research and led to a temporary moratorium on studies. To save the field from legal restrictions, life scientists voluntarily agreed on safety guidelines related to recombinant DNA research at the international conference in Asilomar in 1975, which became a symbol of scientific consensus and the ability of science to govern itself (Hindmarsh and Gottweis, 2005). As a result, practices of self-regulation and risk assessment were introduced into life sciences, underlined by the language of scientific ethics and social responsibility (Jonsen, 2003).

Governing knowledge production and circulation

The dual-use dilemma as a problem of organizing circulation

The very concept of ‘dual use’ reflects the changing concerns related to the use and misuse of research and technology, yet the expression has multiple meanings that are rather inconsistently applied in political and legal discourse (Rath et al., 2014). The term used to have positive connotations when related to commercial technologies that may be reused for military purposes, or the other way round (Molas-Gallart, 1997), but with its increasing use in the context of non-proliferation and export controls, the negative connotations have prevailed (Atlas and Dando, 2006). Currently, the concept of dual use is predominantly used with regard to life sciences, in which it denotes the dilemma regarding control over facilities, equipment, agents and knowledge that may be used not only for legitimate research but also for the development of biological weapons and exploited in bioterrorism or biowarfare (Atlas and Dando, 2006; McLeish and Nightingale, 2007; Tucker, 2012). The broader logic behind the contemporary notion of the dual-use dilemma, however, is more complex, as illustrated through the example of biotechnologies:

The major vehicles of bioterrorism, at least in the near term, are likely to be based on materials and techniques that are available throughout the world and are easily acquired…. The tension between the spread of technologies that protect us and the spread of technologies that threaten us is the crux of the dilemma. (National Research Council, 2004: vii)

This understanding of the dual-use dilemma can be read in the context of the more general modality of circulation, which has been increasingly used as a technology of governance for monitoring and regulating specific mobilities of people, things and ideas (see Aradau and Blanke, 2010). For Foucault (2007: 18), ‘organizing circulation, eliminating its dangerous elements, making a division between good and bad circulation, and maximizing the good circulation by diminishing the bad’ is in fact at the heart of modern security governance, constituting freedom and security as two complementary parts of the same system.

The logic of governing circulation informs many contemporary political and security practices, as numerous examples from finance, public health, migration and other areas demonstrate. In this context, security scholars have focused especially on the policies and practices that emerged in the context of the ‘war on terror’. They point out that the management of circulations brings about normal as well as exceptional practices, which in turn shape the subjectivity of governed bodies and lead to exclusionary effects (see e.g. Neal, 2006; Salter, 2008; Vaughan-Williams, 2009). Aradau and Blanke (2010) in this regard argue for analysing not only the biopolitical rationalities, but also how disciplinary and sovereign power are exercised in the governance of circulations.

Apart from problematizing the governance of negative circulations, scholars also focus on how positive and negative circulations are distinguished and with what effects. With uncertainty perceived as the defining feature of the contemporary security environment, what gains in importance is security expertise – that is, knowledges and techniques through which risks and threats are identified, measured, weighted and assessed (Berling and Bueger, 2015). While some look at the trend towards managing security risks through the lenses of Foucauldian analysis and study how expert knowledge becomes a key tool of risk governance (Aradau and Van Munster, 2007; Hagmann and Dunn Cavelty, 2012), sociologically oriented scholars read these changes in security governance as a transformation of knowledge practices in the security field that enables experts to use their technical knowledge to construct the ‘truth’ on threats and risks (Bigo and Tsoukala, 2008; Huysmans, 2006). These studies suggest that this development contributes to the emergence of new types of security expertise, the mixing of liberal and illiberal practices in security governance, the objectivation of dangers (Berling, 2011) and so-called security scientism – that is, the belief that dangers can be ‘measured’ and ‘calculated’ (Hagmann and Dunn Cavelty, 2012)¹ – as well as ultimately to the depoliticization of security.

When approaching dual use as a problem of organizing circulations, two distinct features can be identified in the contemporary conceptualization of the dual-use dilemma: first, it relates positive circulations to social progress and economic growth; second, it defines the desirability of circulation in terms of the context of (research) consumption. The former is based on a broader neoliberal understanding of secular science as a source of social and economic progress, which is typical for the post-industrial era and the post-World War II era in particular (see Bush, 1945). The latter relates to the argument about the impossibility of clearly delimiting and regulating potentially dangerous research and technologies. In biosciences, this argument is supported by the contingency and unpredictability of molecular life, which poses new challenges to the management of circulations (Braun, 2007; Caduff, 2012; Rose, 2007). Yet since legitimate research is seen as a source of progress, any system of governance that would be too extensive or too restrictive is undesirable (National Research Council, 2004: 73). Therefore, instead of focusing on the context of research production – typically military research – and imposing or strengthening a system of top-down governance, a new regime of practices is developed to regulate and police how research and technologies are ‘consumed’.

This understanding of the dual-use dilemma has profound implications for the way in which science is governed. First, it expands the scope of people, things, technologies and know-how subject to security oversight. For instance, Atlas and Reppy (2005: 52) note that ‘in the current paradigm, all infectious disease research is potentially relevant to bioterrorism’. The attempts to establish categories of ‘sensitive but unclassified’ research or ‘dual-use research of concern’ only reflect more general challenges involved in drawing a line between regulated and unregulated subjects (Caduff, 2012: 346–350). Second, not actual threats but potential risks become the key concern in biosecurity governance. As the moratorium on gain-of-functions research shows, the debate on governing dual-use research is currently structured in terms of weighing the benefits of research against potential risks. The understanding of the dual-use dilemma as a problem of balancing openness and profit against secrecy and security endorses the system of risk governance, which is based on efforts to forecast the future and predict the probabilities and potential costs of misuse of research. Finally, this way of governing science shifts the burden of regulation onto the scientific community itself and ‘responsibilizes’ the experts from the field – scientists themselves. This structures the relations among decisionmakers, experts and governed subjects in a new way.

The subjectification of knowledge and the politics of responsible research

In contemporary science, which relies more and more on advanced technologies and consequently on situated know-how, the attempts to govern dual-use research focus increasingly not only on materials and technologies but also on scientific knowledge (Atlas and Dando, 2006; Caduff, 2012).² This trend plays out prominently in life sciences, but occurs also in other fields such as chemistry, nanotechnology, neurosciences or (geo)engineering (see Oltmann, 2015; Stilgoe et al., 2013; Tucker, 2012).

For Stehr (2005), the efforts to explicitly regulate and police knowledge are a relatively new phenomenon related to the rise of knowledge societies, which are characterized by the capitalization of knowledge, fading exclusivity of scientific expertise, and blurring boundaries between science and other social spheres in general (see also Stehr, 1994). Yet as scientific and technical knowledge penetrates all spheres of such a society, the social consequences of the accumulated knowledge accessible to a broad scope of people start to be questioned and feared, leading to calls for regulating knowledge.³ Two particular features distinguish prior models of science politics from the emerging knowledge politics: in the latter, the pressure to regulate new knowledge comes mostly from outside academia, and what is perceived as a problem is not the actual knowledge but its anticipated consequences (Stehr, 2005).

The shift to understanding knowledge as risk rather than power brings about new attempts to renegotiate the social contract for science. These efforts gained great salience in the past decade, especially in the United States and Europe. With the assumed unpredictability and potential dangerousness of emerging technologies, prior models of science governance based on post hoc regulation, formal risk assessment or voluntary self-regulation have been challenged, and attention has been directed towards future-oriented and more inclusive models of science governance (Stilgoe et al., 2013). Under the label of ‘responsible research and innovation’, three principles of science governance have been proposed: opening up the debate on governing the purpose of research and innovation to a broader scope of stakeholders, institutionalizing the regulation of research and innovation, and redefining the notion of the social responsibility of science (Owen et al., 2012). Despite different meanings attached to ‘responsibility’ (Glerup and Horst, 2014), promoting responsible science at the level of structure became a new technique for organizing the circulation of scientific knowledge in many fields.

With the securitization of bioterrorism, life sciences exemplify an area where the debate on responsible research and innovation found great resonance with security concerns over the control of dual-use research. However, in practice, the prevailing approach for disciplining scientific knowledge in life sciences has been to incorporate security practices within the scientific field through shaping the behavioural norms in science and making scientists responsible for securing the circulation of knowledge (see e.g. Lentzos, 2008; Rappert and McLeish, 2007; Tucker, 2012). Such a move is justified with reference to scientific expertise as well as social responsibility.

On the one hand, scientific knowledge is seen as a barely governable subject, whose policing requires advanced field-specific expertise (Revill and Jefferson, 2013). Therefore, soft law and informal measures such as codes of conduct or risk education are typically preferred over hard-law regulations. Although prepared in close cooperation with security professionals, the new practices are to be implemented by scientific authorities and integrated into many areas of scientific practice, using the existing institutional architecture and procedures (McLeish and Nightingale, 2007). To facilitate this process, scientific elites – such as professional societies, funding agencies, publishers, etc. – are intensively educated about the dangers of dual use and motivated – or directly forced – to develop new social norms and community-based practices or adjust existing ones to the logic of security (Rappert, 2010). As expressed in the US National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats,

Life scientists are best positioned to develop, document, and reinforce norms regarding the beneficial intent of their contribution to the global community as well as those activities that are fundamentally intolerable. Although other communities can make meaningful contributions, only the concerted and deliberate effort of distinguished and respected life scientists to develop, document, and ultimately promulgate such norms will enable them to be fully endorsed by their peers and colleagues. (National Security Council, 2009: 8)

On the other hand, the new regime of practices is developed not only to effectively address the scientific audience but also to ‘responsibilize’ scientists for the risks associated with the implications of their research. In line with broader trends in the contemporary management of circulations, the efforts to establish social and political control of new knowledge build on the technologies of responsibilization (Rose, 1990), an approach adopted within many social spheres, increasingly including also security politics. Under the auspices of the state apparatus, scientific elites together with security professionals define a new ‘culture of responsibility’ and ‘good research practices’ in life sciences, through which they seek to reinterpret the responsibilities of scientists for their work (see NSABB, 2011). A telling example is provided by an educational brochure for life scientists issued by the US government and called ‘Does your research have dual use potential?’, according to which,

Scientists have a professional responsibility to: [u]nderstand dual use research issues and concerns, [b]e aware of the implications of their work and the various ways in which information and products from their work could be misused, and [t]ake steps to minimize misuse of their work. (National Institutes of Health, 2010)

Governing knowledge: The practices of responsible science

How can we analyse and critically reflect on this type of governance? Since the Enlightenment, science – and especially natural science – has enjoyed a special status in Western societies. However, the popular beliefs in scientific progress, freedom and neutrality were subjected to critical scrutiny with new perspectives on the world of science (see e.g. Bourdieu, 1988; Foucault, 1980; Kuhn, 1962; Latour, 1987). Following this move to ‘unpack’ the black box of science, science and technology studies scholars have advanced the study of scientific knowledge and the process of its social construction. In particular, they argue that scientific knowledge is both political and practical. On the one hand, knowledge production is not a disinterested act, since science is in constant dialogue with the ‘reality’ it seeks to describe and explain. Scientific knowledge expressed through theories and concepts thus helps constitute and structure the objects it looks at, which means that the relationship between object and subject is destabilized. On the other hand, since knowledge is so deeply connected with the context in which it is produced it cannot be seen as an entity on its own, detached from agents’ experience and the social sphere in which they operate, but must be viewed rather as a practical ability.

Informed by this conceptualization of scientific knowledge, how can we study the dynamic of securing scientific knowledge in life sciences? Karin Knorr Cetina (2001: 186) suggests that ‘understanding knowledge societies will have to include understanding knowledge practices’. In line with this logic, it can be argued that to comprehend the broader changes in the understanding of science–security relations, it is useful to look at the governance of concrete practices of knowledge production and circulation, such as education, hiring, training, guidance, funding, conduct of research, scientific collaboration, peer review or publication. By analysing how knowledge practices are transformed and what vision of social responsibility, ethics and security these changes are embedded in, it is possible to uncover how different types of regulation and political powers come together and how the governed subjects are constructed.

Although informed by securitization theory, this approach enables us to study the security-driven changes in the governance of science from a more complex perspective, involving multiple actors, routes and sites of securitization, and thus also to understand the broader implications of this process. Besides, to focus on how the practices of responsible science are envisioned and how their transformation is justified instead of studying political discourse on dual-use research (only) is in line with the proclaimed necessity to shift the burden of regulation and responsibility to scientists themselves. In other words, since the emerging governance of knowledge links the state-centric, top-down logic of security with the ethics-based, networked system of science (self-)regulation, it is useful to look at how the existing regulatory system is to be transformed in order to meet the new security interests.

Securing the circulation of knowledge: The case of ‘responsible bio-science’

This section presents three brief examples of how scientific practices are redefined in the attempts to secure scientific knowledge. Each example will briefly contextualize a set of practices and analyse their transformation. The analysis is primarily illustrative, presenting prima facie results of the research. Focusing on US regulation, the examples represent the most advanced biosecurity governance of science. Specifically, the analysis is based on the policy recommendations of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which is an increasingly important federal committee that bridges science and national security and gives advice ‘on strategies for dealing with the generation and communication of information and new technologies from life sciences research that have the potential for both benevolent and malevolent application’ (NSABB, 2007a: ii) – in other words, dual-use research. It was established in response to an influential report called Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism (National Research Council, 2004), which identified several areas of dual-use research and called for increased security oversight in life sciences, including greater involvement of scientists.

The NSABB policies apply to any life science research that is (co-)funded from US federal sources and involves specifically defined biological agents and toxins (US Government, 2014b: 8). Nonetheless, the relevance of the cases goes beyond this context in several ways. First, biosecurity education and awareness-raising are aimed at all life science students, researchers and scientific elites, thus exposing a broad scope of actors to this logic of security. Second, the regulatory practices suggested by the NSABB are exported by governmental and nongovernmental organizations (such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the American Association for the Advancement of Science) to other regions in the world, as envisaged in the US National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats (National Security Council, 2009: 8), and seek thus to inspire the development of biosecurity policies elsewhere. Third, similar approaches to regulating life sciences are supported, for instance, in the international biological weapons regime as a part of its changing approach to bioweapons non-proliferation (United Nations, 2012) or by the European Union, which spreads the practices of biosecurity governance, for example, via its Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Risk Mitigation (CBRN) Centres of Excellence established in more than 50 partner countries (European Union, 2015).

Education

Education and awareness-raising about the responsibilities of scientists regarding dual-use research are the key tools in the emerging framework for governing scientific knowledge (see National Research Council, 2004). Supported by surveys on unsatisfactory levels of awareness of dual-use issues among scientists, there have been growing efforts to develop new ways of educating life scientists about ethics and security (see e.g. Rappert, 2010; Whitby et al., 2015).

As the NSABB (2007a: 31) acknowledges, educational programmes ‘help foster a culture of responsibility, which is important to cultivate early in the development of future scientific talent’. Therefore, it stimulates the creation of new educational tools, course curricula and case studies, but the implementation of concrete educational practices will be in the hands of scientific associations and professional societies (NSABB, 2007a: 31). The key principle of this education is to teach scientists that they are ethically responsible for preventing the misuse of their research, since ‘scientists themselves are the most critical tool for oversight’ (NSABB, 2012: 30). For instance, in the educational tutorial by the Federation of American Scientists (2014), this principle is explained in the following manner:

scientists not only have a moral obligation to prevent the misapplication of research technologies or findings, they are also in the best position to understand the potential for misuse…. The risk of not becoming engaged may be governmental actions that impose blanket restrictions and cumbersome rules for scientists that have little impact on real security and could slow legitimate research.

Concretely, the issues of biosecurity and dual-use research are to be incorporated within the existing ethical training on responsible conduct of research (NSABB, 2011), which is an established part of scientific education. In fact, though, the outreach of the educational practices will be much broader, as the NSABB (2008) suggests focusing also on high school students, public health professionals, journalists or the general public.

Research

The NSABB develops a broad set of practices related to the conduct of research – that is, the production of scientific knowledge. Under the label of ‘culture of responsibility’, these practices are to be promoted by actors that supervise, oversee or play other important roles in the research process, as well as through international roundtables, seminars, trainings and educational materials for researchers all over the world (NSABB, 2008). The key idea is to establish a complex system of checks and balances in life sciences – in the words of experts, a ‘web of prevention’ (Rappert and McLeish, 2007) – through which it will become much more difficult to misuse potentially dangerous research.

Scientists are encouraged to embrace the culture of responsibility particularly through the development of ‘good research practices’ and security-based self-governance. Both principles are addressed by the NSABB (2011: 8):

knowledge can be used for good as well as for evil…. [I]n the pursuit of knowledge and truth, all scientists – especially those working in the life sciences – are called to cultivate among themselves a culture of responsibility…. Their beliefs, attitudes, and values must reflect a heightened consciousness of the implications of research…. They must consciously live and demonstrate these beliefs, attitudes, and values through day-to-day practices of mindful research. With transparency, they must examine their own research with consideration of its potential for misuse, and they must conduct and communicate their research in ways that mitigate any risks of misuse…. They must hold themselves and their peers accountable – collegially and with a shared commitment to advancing science and maintaining public trust.

In a report entitled Guidance for enhancing personnel reliability and strengthening the culture of responsibility, the NSABB (2011) recommends concrete ‘good practices’ of knowledge production in life sciences. It defines responsible hiring and employment practices, promotes the development of codes of conduct, and highlights the importance of a strong institutional and laboratory leadership as a way to empower role models in developing the culture of responsibility. In research on select biological agents, the NSABB suggests paying attention to the reporting of concerning behaviours and supports the institutionalization of reporting practices. Concrete examples of concerning behaviour include ‘sending inappropriate emails’, ‘working in “off hours” without justification or documentation’ or ‘unexplained absences’ (NSABB, 2011: 23–25). Albeit not for a broad implementation, the application of personnel reliability practices such as video monitoring, a two-person rule in the laboratory, mental health assessment or drug testing can also be considered (NSABB, 2011: 31–35).

Furthermore, an important element of this culture is the emphasis on self-governance. The NSABB (2012: 144) argues that it is a core responsibility of life scientists to ‘assess their own research efforts for dual use potential and report as appropriate’. For that reason, scientists are encouraged to evaluate the potential dangerousness of their research via risk–benefit analysis and thus estimate the ‘costs’, ‘benefits’ and potential misapplications of their research (NSABB, 2007a, 2012). However, even though these policies are prepared in close cooperation with the national security community, they will be put in practice by scientific authorities at the international, national or institutional level, at best as voluntarily grass-roots activities, and to a great extent based on existing ethical and safety practices, such as training in the responsible conduct of research or oversight by the Institutional Biosafety Committees (see NSABB, 2012).

Publication

Publishing is a key step in the process of knowledge dissemination, yet the controversies about publishing most explicitly demonstrate how the conflict between scientific freedom and biosecurity has been defined. Soon after 9/11, it was argued that terrorists may benefit from open scientific communication to gain knowledge on weapons of mass destruction. Life sciences were identified as a particularly sensitive area owing to the apparent accessibility of bioweapons to non-state actors (Wallerstein, 2002). At the same time, the publication of several papers on potentially dual-use research stirred great public controversy and led to calls for changing publication policies and practices in life sciences. Under the threat that sensitive scientific data are ‘found in a cave in Afghanistan with sections highlighted in yellow’, as a US security expert warned, scientific and policy communities were brought together to deal with the question of how to communicate scientific information in the age of terrorism (Malakoff, 2003).

The result of these efforts is a framework for ‘responsible communication of life sciences research with dual use potential’, developed by the NSABB (2007b) as a part of the promoted ‘culture of responsibility’ in life sciences. The attempts to secure the dissemination of scientific knowledge are based on shaping the practices of peer review and assigning new responsibilities to the key decisionmakers involved in communicating scientific knowledge – that is, journal editors, reviewers and publishers – who will assess risks and benefits of communicating results of research with dual-use potential (NSABB, 2011: 83–84, 2012: 146–147). For that purpose, the NSABB (2007a,b) outlined specific strategies for mitigating or eliminating risks of ‘irresponsible’ communication of research. These include potential changes in the content, timing and extent of the distribution of research results and thus enable publishing authorities to modify the scope of published results, delay their publication, limit the target audience or decline to publish the manuscript for security reasons (NSABB, 2007b: 10). Despite their disagreement on concrete procedures of biosecurity review, scientific authorities apparently accept these new responsibilities (see Patrone et al., 2012).

The recent disputed publication of papers by Fouchier and Kawaoka on a highly pathogenic version of the H5N1 virus is an example of sovereign power explicitly stepping into science governance. The NSABB intervened in the publishing procedure and recommended against publishing the full manuscripts. The Dutch government further decided – and a subsequent court ruling confirmed – that in order to publish these findings, as a Dutch researcher, Ron Fouchier had to apply for an EU export licence for dual-use items and technologies. The papers were finally published after revisions, yet raised a lot of controversy (Vogel, 2013/14).

Ethicalization of security

The preceding analysis shows that the emerging governance of dual-use research in life sciences is marked by a blurring boundary between security and scientific ethics, which involves new practices of securitization and brings about new implications for the politics of (in)security. To better understand this dynamic, we may approach it as an ethicalization of security. Ethicalization of security can be understood as a process of securitization that is contextualized in the discourse and practices of ethical governance and combines the elements of self-governance and sovereign intervention. Ethicalization thus entails moving an issue out of the realm of democratic deliberation on the basis not of an extraordinary threat, but of the need to uphold ethical norms. It is based on the responsibilization of the governed subject, who is supposed to internalize a specific security rationality and adopt self-regulatory practices.

Contextualization of security in the discourse and practices of ethics

Embedding the narrative on dual-use research in the existing discourse and practices of responsible science is particularly remarkable. This contextualization is explicitly pragmatic, as it is used to effectively address the scientific audience for which ethics and research integrity have played an important role, at least since the Asilomar conference in the 1970s. For instance, when presenting the US experience with biosecurity to an international audience composed of diplomats and science experts, a representative of the US National Academy of Sciences explained that

Framing the issues as Responsible Science makes concepts such as biosecurity and dual use relevant and more readily accepted when presented as part of the larger social responsibility of science; is compatible with more security-focused activities for specialized, more directly affected audiences; facilitates reaching wide range of scientists, who are part of many stakeholders … and can complement the existing legal and regulatory structure and provide a basis for discussing additional measures or changes in practices. (Husbands, 2014)

Introducing biosecurity education to existing curricula or assigning the competences of biosecurity review to ethics committees and editorial boards of scientific journals demonstrates this logic well.

However, this contextualization arguably goes beyond pragmatically approaching a specific audience in such a way that it accepts new threat images and security measures (see Balzacq, 2005; Stritzel, 2007). The logic of security, which is according to securitization theory characterized by exceptionality, emergency and calls for extraordinary measures (Buzan et al., 1998: 24), is replaced here by the logic of ethics, based on referring to desired and undesired values and behaviour. The intended impact of this mobilizing move is similar to securitization, yet instead of invoking the language of existential threats, the focus shifts to stressing positive values and practices. This ethicalization of security, though, brings about further implications for the governed subject and the accountability of experts, as well as for the politicization of security and potential resistance to it.

Combination of sovereign intervention and self-governance

Ethicalization refers not only to a specific dynamic of securitization, but also to its implications. Through the framing of security regulations not as requirements but as responsibilities, the audience is asked to internalize the newly defined values and regulate its behaviour accordingly (see Rose, 1990). The great emphasis placed on education as a part of biosecurity governance is a good example in this regard. Through summer schools, practical trainings or e-learning modules, students learn about responsible science and internalize the new practices with the ultimate goal being ‘not just following rules, but true commitment’.⁴ By developing a mind-set of awareness, future scientists learn to ‘think security’ and thus become more susceptible to further security regulations.

By defining the rules for desired and undesired behaviour, ethicalization constructs security and insecurity at the level of the governed subject. Designing the practices of responsible science may be seen as a way to reinforce this simplistic yet powerful black-and-white image of scientific practice, while expanding the vision of the ‘good researcher’ as a responsible, rule-obeying, truth-seeking person who conducts research ‘solely for peaceful and beneficial purposes’ (National Security Council, 2009: 1). However, the failure to fulfil the ideal of scientific responsibility becomes a security concern, as previously informal ethical principles are transformed into security norms. As demonstrated by the example of the contested publications or the moratorium on gain-on-functions research, this enables sovereign power to affect the functioning of the scientific field and intervene in the process of knowledge production and circulation. Even though ‘the validity of correlating violations of scientific responsibility with personnel security risks’ is occasionally debated (American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2013: 16), the prevailing discourse takes the link between responsibility and security for granted.

Yet what does it mean to govern security through ethics? Ethicalization may have several consequences. First, it expands and transforms security expertise. The culture of responsibility makes scientists act as security agents, which can be seen as an example of ‘citizen surveillance’ practices (Vaughan-Williams, 2009), yet upgraded to encompass also ‘citizen self-surveillance’. As security experts, scientists are supposed to take ‘a view from nowhere’, objectify their research, project its further evolution, and calculate and weigh its potential benefits and costs. Such an approach decontextualizes yet simultaneously recontextualizes scientific expertise and subordinates the process of knowledge production to the logic of security and risk-management practices in particular. This seemingly value-neutral, expert-driven approach further reinforces the depoliticization of security and the diffusion of responsibility for security governance and empowers scientific authorities (professional societies, educators, institutional leaders, journal editors, publishers, etc.) as guardians of secure research.

Second, translating security measures into daily practice and employing the frame of ethics changes the prospects for resistance. Future scientists learn to conduct research and disseminate its results through internalizing field-specific norms and values, which also involves accepting the system of power relations in academia and ways of gaining capital (see Bourdieu, 1988). While it would be far from accurate to claim that scientists used to be completely free in their choice of research topics and approaches, the resistance to scientific practices is arguably different under securitization, as it may raise security concerns and thus diminish ‘the very possibility of participating in the moral economy of scientific exchange’ (Caduff, 2012: 335). For instance, publishing is of great symbolic value and is also the key strategy for gaining scientific (and relatedly other forms of) capital, so scientists may either accept the newly defined practices or shift their attention to less innovative and less controversial research to comply with the established ‘publish or perish’ norm (Devaux, 2015).

Finally, securitizing scientific responsibility shapes the meaning and practice of democratic accountability of science. Science and technology studies scholars emphasize the importance of an open dialogue between scientists and the public about what scientists will study and how (see e.g. Jasanoff, 2003); but when concerns about moral and ethical responsibilities of science become a matter of security, to whom will science be responsible and how will this relationship look in practice? To what extent would further debates be open to critique of not only concrete regulatory practices, but also more general principles of governing science? As the current debate on gain-of-functions research demonstrates (see e.g. Duprex et al., 2015), scientific elites are able to voice their criticism, but this resistance is structured by the risk–benefit deliberative framework and focuses on seeking appropriate measures rather than questioning the broader security rationalities and practices.

Conclusion

Managing the risks of techno-scientific progress is unique neither to life sciences nor to contemporary politics. However, existing concerns over a potential misuse of scientific research were given a new meaning and salience in the post-9/11 environment with the rising fears of hostile non-state actors. In comparison with that of the Cold War era, though, the current focus is less on nuclear physics or technologies related to conventional weapons and more on emerging technologies that are more accessible and thus more attractive for potential terrorists. This article has pointed out that, as part of this development, more and more attention is given to the regulation of knowledge, and it has explored how knowledge politics plays out in life sciences, where these concerns have gained great prominence. It has found that the attempts to secure potentially dangerous research and innovation are based on redefining the principles and practices of scientific responsibility and transforming an ethics-based system of governance into a technology of security, and has suggested understanding this phenomenon as an ethicalization of security.

However, building a ‘culture of responsibility’ as a technology of security may raise tensions both within the scientific field and between scientists and society and breed a ‘culture of insecurity’. The prevailing all-embracing approach to the security governance of science does not help in this regard either. Instead of providing better understanding of the ‘threatening’ issues at stake, along with their contextualization and prioritization, it shifts the attention to action – that is, how to effectively ‘secure’ science. This further reinforces the role of apparently apolitical expert decisionmaking processes and downplays debates on how relevant these issues are, who shall decide on them, on behalf of whom, and how. Especially in undemocratic settings, the introduction of similarly motivated policies may be prone to the misuse of power in academia and have unforeseen consequences (see Schiermeier, 2015).

The implications of ethicalization for the ontology of science will be explored in further research. For science as a cognitive domain, ethicalization may lead to changing the criteria for the validity of knowledge – that is, the norms and practices defining how scientists observe the world, produce truth claims about its functioning and reflect on the process of knowledge production. By shaping the meaning of scientific progress and tying it more closely to the neoliberal risk–benefit framework, ethicalization is also related to shifting the attention to ‘desired’ objects and methods of research while downplaying others. As such, it may contribute to constructing new scientific taboos narrowly defined by material rather than social factors. However, the question is not only how ethicalization shapes the ‘production of knowledge and truth’ in science, but also what status this knowledge is to have under the new social contract for science.

This raises further questions: How does the turn to state-imposed self-regulatory modes of governance affect the role of science in society as well as the functioning of the academic field? How does it affect the practices of security expertise and the prospects of politicizing and potentially resisting security? And how does the dynamic of ethicalization vary across different disciplinary fields and (political) contexts? To move beyond the simplistic understanding of scientific knowledge as a double-edged sword, it is important not only to better understand the functioning of science, but also to reflect on the interplay among science, politics and security in which the current concerns over dual-use research are situated. More critical engagement with this topic can not only move the debate on dual-use research, but also provide new inspiration for the social scientific research on security.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

For their helpful comments, I would like to thank Jan Daniel, Nik Hynek, Tomáš Karásek, Jakub Záhora, the participants on the ‘Security Professionals, Technocratization and the Politics of (In)Security’ panel at the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, Giardini Naxos, Sicily in 2015, the editors of Security Dialogue and three anonymous reviewers. Special thanks go to Mark B. Salter for his encouragement and invaluable guidance during the work on an earlier draft of this article. The usual disclaimers apply.

Funding

Research for this article has been funded by the Institute of Political Studies at Charles University in Prague through Specific Research Project no. 260 111/ 2014.

Notes

Dagmar Rychnovská is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Political Studies, Charles University in Prague and works as a researcher and a lecturer at the Metropolitan University Prague. In her research, she focuses on critical approaches to security studies and the overlap between security and science politics.

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