<p>This thesis examines the Swedish political response to the challenges posed by gene technology, seen through the prism of governmental commissions. It discerns and analyses continuities and changes in the Swedish political conception of gene technology, over the course of two decades, 1980–2000. This is done by thematically following ideas of “risks” and “ethics” as they are represented in the inner workings and reception of three governmental commissions. The Gene-Ethics Commission (1981–1984), the Gene Technology Commission (1990–1992) and the Biotechnology Commission (1997–2000) form the empirical focal points of this analysis. The first two provided preparatory policy proposals that preceded the implementation of the Swedish gene technology laws of 1991 and 1994. The last one aimed at presenting a comprehensive Swedish biotechnology policy for the new millennium.</p><p> The study takes into account the role of governmental commissions as arenas where science and politics intersect in Swedish political life, and illuminates how this type of “boundary organisation”, placed on the border of science and politics, impinges on the understanding of the gene technology issue. The commissions have looked into the limits, dangers, possibilities and future applications of gene technology. They have been appointed to deal with the problematic task of distinguishing between what is routine and untested practices, realistic prediction and “science fiction”, what are unique problems and what are problems substantially similar to older ones, what constitutes a responsible approach as opposed to misconduct and what it means to let things “get out of hand” in contrast to being “in control”. Throughout a period of twenty years, media reports have continued to frame the challenges posed by gene technology as a task of balancing risks and benefits, walking the fine line between “frankenfoods” and “miracle drugs”. </p><p>One salient problem for the commissions to solve was that science and industry seemed to promote a technology the public opposed and resisted, at least in parts. For both politics and science to gain, or regain, public trust it needed to demonstrate that risks – be it environmental, ethical or health related ones – were under control. Under the surface, it was much more complicated than “science helping politics” to make informed and rational decisions on how to formulate a regulatory policy. Could experts be trusted to participate in policy-making in a neutral way and was it not important, in accordance with democratic norms, to involve the public? </p>

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse Sweden’s first GMO-legislation which was implemented in 1994. The legislation was created because of Swedens commitment to the EES-agreement, but also because of the necessity for GMO-legislation. The analysis is based on Ulrich Beck’s theory which stipulates that highly developed societies are no longer industrial societies but instead have become risk societies, which also has a connection to and is strongly influenced by the precautionary principle. In a risk society the logic of risk production dominates the logic of wealth production and the regulations and actions of governments correlate to this perspective. The questions the analysis seeks to answer are how the actors involved in the making of Sweden’s first comprehensive GMO-legislation has considered, judged and finally chosen to handle the potential risks associated with gene technology. The results show that Sweden had a distinctive focus on risk, which also had a strong connection to ethics, which in the end was about how big of a risk could be accepted based on the moral resonsibility for the environment. In some parts Sweden took the restrictions further than required for by the EES-agreement based on the risk approach. The legislation can be characterized as being surrounded by an epistemological problem, due the lack of definitive knowledge about GMOs at the time. These results also support the view found by earlier research, when it comes to how Sweden has handled the issues surrounding GMOs during an early stage. / Uppsatsens syfte är att utifrån ett riskperspektiv analysera Sveriges första heltäckande GMO-lagstiftning vilken antogs 1994. Lagstiftningen skapades som ett resultat av Sveriges åtaganden via EES-avtalet, men också utifrån nödvändigheten av att skapa en heltäckande GMO-lag. Undersökningen bygger på Ulrich Becks teori om att välutvecklade samhällen har gått från att vara industrisamhällen till att bli risksamhällen. I risksamhället dominerar riskproduktionens logik över rikedomsproduktionens logik där regeringars och myndigheters agerande styrs utifrån detta perspektiv. Frågor som undersökningen söker svar på är hur de aktörer som var inblandade i skapandet av Sveriges första heltäckande GMO-lag resonerat kring, bedömt och slutligen hanterat de risker som ansågs finnas med gentekniken. Resultatet visar att Sverige hade ett uttalat fokus på risker som i förlängningen går tillbaka till etiska frågor, där vilka risker som kunde accepteras utifrån det moraliska ansvaret för miljön stod i centrum. I vissa delar så införde Sverige en striktare lagstiftning än vad EES-avtalet krävde utifrån ett riskperspektiv. Lagstiftningen kan sägas ha karaktäriserats av ett epistemologiskt problem, vilket var en följd av den okunskap som förelåg vid tidpunkten. Detta stödjer också den tidigare forskningens uppfattningar kring hur Sverige hanterat frågan med GMO på ett tidigt stadium.

Während der Evolution entwickelten sich Promotorelemente von Prokaryonten, Eukaryonten und Plastiden in Sequenz und Struktur unterschiedlich. Ein Transfer von Promotorsequenzen zwischen Prokaryonten, Eukaryonten und Plastiden sollte daher zu keiner effizienten Genexpression führen. Mit dieser Arbeit sollte die Spezifität von Promotoren analysiert und ihre Funktionalität über `kingdom´-Grenzen hinaus untersucht werden. Hierfür wurden zwölf pflanzenspezifische Promotoren, welche in der Gentechnik zur Herstellung von transgenen Pflanzen eingesetzt werden, auf Genexpression in fünf Bakterienarten untersucht. Weiterhin wurden drei bakterielle und sechs Plastiden Promotoren auf Genexpression in Nicotiana tabacum untersucht. Die Frequenz, mit der die pflanzenspezifischen Promotoren (P) in den untersuchten Bakterienarten zu einer Expression führten, lag bei 50 % der getesteten Kombinationen. Für den P ST-LS1 aus Solanum tuberosum wurde eine Expression in den fünf untersuchten Bakterienarten nachgewiesen. Zwei der getesteten pflanzenspezifischen Promotoren, P RolC aus Agrobacterium rhizogenes und P 247 aus N. tabacum zeigten keine Expression in den untersuchten Bakterienarten. Die Charakterisierung der mRNA-Transkripte ausgewählter Fusionen der pflanzenspezifischen Promotoren mit den Reportergenen zeigten eindeutig, dass für die Transkriptionsinitiation durch die bakterielle RNA-Polymerase Sequenzelemente der pflanzenspezifischen Promotoren genutzt wurden. Mit einer ortsspezifischen Mutagenese des P ST-LS1 konnte die von der bakteriellen RNA-Polymerase genutzte -10-Region in Escherichia coli und Acinetobacter sp. ermittelt werden. Die `down-Mutanten´ führten in E. coli und Acinetobacter sp. zu einer Reduktion der Expression, wohingegen sie nach stabiler Integration in das Pflanzengenom von N. tabacum eine unverminderte Expression in bezug auf den Wildtyp-Promotor zeigten. Die Untersuchung der bakteriellen und Plastiden Promotoren ergab nur in einem einzigen Fall von neun getesteten Promotoren eine sehr geringe transiente Expression. / During evolution the promoter elements from prokaryotes, eukaryotes and plastids have developed differently with regard to their sequence and structure, implying that in general a transfer of promoter sequences between prokaryotes, eukaryotes and plastids will not cause an efficient gene expression. The aim of this study was to investigate the specificity of promoter sequences and their functionality in different kingdoms. Therefore 12 different plant-specific promoters, all used for the construction of genetically modified plants, were tested for their capability to direct a gene expression in various bacteria. Furthermore three bacterial and six plastid promoters were tested with respect to their ability to direct a gene expression in Nicotiana tabacum. The frequency of plant-specific promoters (P) directing gene expression in bacteria was 50 % of the combinations analysed. The promoter P ST-LS1 of Solanum tuberosum was functional in all bacteria tested. Two of the plant-specific promoters, P RolC of Agrobacterium rhizogenes and P 247 of N. tabacum, caused no gene expression in the bacteria tested. The characterisation of mRNA-transcripts of fusions between the plant-specific promoter sequences and the reporter genes proved that sequence elements of the plant-specific promoters themselves were used for transcription initiation by the bacterial RNA polymerase. By site-directed mutagenesis of the P ST-LS1 the -10 region used by the bacterial RNA polymerase of E. coli and Acinetobacter sp. was identified. The generated `down-mutants´ of the P ST-LS1 promoter showed a reduction of expression in E. coli and Acinetobacter sp. while these mutants were still fully active after stable integration in the genome of N. tabacum compared to the wildtype promoter. The investigation of the bacterial and the plastid promoters showed a very low transient expression of one out of nine promoters tested.

This thesis explores the environmental politics surrounding agricultural biotechnology innovations and diffusion. Recent developments in agricultural biotechnology are accompanied by growing social concerns that such innovations pose risks to the environment and to human health. Biosafety is a term used to discuss the possibility of such risks. Currently, the regulation of agricultural gene-technology and biosafety are contentious environmental issues for national and international policy communities. However, detailed studies of the conflicts and complexities generated by biotechnology for environmental governance are scarce. In particular, little is understood of the ways in which biotechnology issues emerge on regulatory agendas, and research gaps remain on how differing perspectives of biotechnological risks impact on policy outcomes. This thesis makes a significant contribution to these outstanding research issues. My contribution is a new analytical framework that unearths the discursive role biotechnology plays in constructing international environmental policy regimes. I develop this framework on the understanding that the use of language resources like storylines, metaphors and other rhetorical devices are critical in shaping environmental policy in general and biotechnology governance in particular. This analytical framework couples a language analysis to an investigation of the practices of institutional power. The result is a discourse analysis that provides important and useful insights into the theory and practice of biosafety policy. In other words, my thesis explores both the ‘talking’ and the ‘doing’ of policymaking and thereby provides new insights into the contested and uncertain environmental policy area of international gene-technology regulation. Specifically, I undertake a discourse analysis of international biosafety politics within the Convention on Biological Diversity. I apply my discourse analysis to a case study: the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2000. My research provides a different reading of international gene-technology politics, one that questions the constructed nature of biotechnology as a policy problem and reveals the power relations involved in producing particular policy options and outcomes on biosafety. There are a number of key research findings that emerged from the application of my discursive analytical framework to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. I find that biosafety is a highly fluid concept. It can enlarge or contract depending on the way in which language resources are mobilised by policy actors and interest groups to secure definitions and generate consensus around their preferred understandings of biosafety. Moreover, my research indicates that the more radical texts for biosafety can be recast by dominant interest groups into scripts for shallow reform agendas. Institutionalised policy practices also effect policy outcomes. My research finds that the use of Expert Panels, for example, is important in shaping international policy communities’ understanding of the policy problems posed by biotechnology risks. In the light of these findings, my thesis argues that the ability of interest groups and policy actors to win language games within institutional settings also enables them to secure their preferred policy outcomes. I import the concept of authorship as a new policy concept to discuss the ways in which such groups exercise social power to secure their understanding of biosafety, which thereby effect the ‘writing’ of the dominant accounts of what constitutes an acceptable international biosafety standard within the Cartagena Protocol. In short, my thesis is a new account of biosafety politics that fills some of the current knowledge gaps about how biotechnology is emerging onto regulatory agendas. It also demonstrates the mechanisms of power and the language struggles that determine biosafety policy outcomes within multi-lateral environmental agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.

This thesis examines the Swedish political response to the challenges posed by gene technology, seen through the prism of governmental commissions. It discerns and analyses continuities and changes in the Swedish political conception of gene technology, over the course of two decades, 1980–2000. This is done by thematically following ideas of “risks” and “ethics” as they are represented in the inner workings and reception of three governmental commissions. The Gene-Ethics Commission (1981–1984), the Gene Technology Commission (1990–1992) and the Biotechnology Commission (1997–2000) form the empirical focal points of this analysis. The first two provided preparatory policy proposals that preceded the implementation of the Swedish gene technology laws of 1991 and 1994. The last one aimed at presenting a comprehensive Swedish biotechnology policy for the new millennium. The study takes into account the role of governmental commissions as arenas where science and politics intersect in Swedish political life, and illuminates how this type of “boundary organisation”, placed on the border of science and politics, impinges on the understanding of the gene technology issue. The commissions have looked into the limits, dangers, possibilities and future applications of gene technology. They have been appointed to deal with the problematic task of distinguishing between what is routine and untested practices, realistic prediction and “science fiction”, what are unique problems and what are problems substantially similar to older ones, what constitutes a responsible approach as opposed to misconduct and what it means to let things “get out of hand” in contrast to being “in control”. Throughout a period of twenty years, media reports have continued to frame the challenges posed by gene technology as a task of balancing risks and benefits, walking the fine line between “frankenfoods” and “miracle drugs”. One salient problem for the commissions to solve was that science and industry seemed to promote a technology the public opposed and resisted, at least in parts. For both politics and science to gain, or regain, public trust it needed to demonstrate that risks – be it environmental, ethical or health related ones – were under control. Under the surface, it was much more complicated than “science helping politics” to make informed and rational decisions on how to formulate a regulatory policy. Could experts be trusted to participate in policy-making in a neutral way and was it not important, in accordance with democratic norms, to involve the public?