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Institutional Drift in International Biotechnology Regulation
Author(s) -
Rabitz Florian
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
global policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.602
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1758-5899
pISSN - 1758-5880
DOI - 10.1111/1758-5899.12652
Subject(s) - biosecurity , biosafety , corporate governance , international regime , political science , explanatory power , global governance , field (mathematics) , power (physics) , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , economics , management , law , ecology , philosophy , physics , mathematics , epistemology , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics
Digitalization, genome editing and synthetic biology are presently leading to fundamental changes in the field of biotechnology. At the same time, international regulatory institutions have largely failed to adapt to those changes. This text evaluates the role of interests, knowledge and institutional factors for explaining nonadaptation, or ‘institutional drift’. Focusing on the domains of biosafety, biosecurity and genetic resources, the analysis highlights the explanatory power of knowledge and, to a lesser extent, interests, with institutional factors playing only a minor role. With global governance having to cope with profound changes in various technological fields, the text thus shows the broader importance of understanding the conditions under which international institutions do, or do not, adapt.