RELU project team at Warwick
• Dept of Politics &
International Studies.
Wyn Grant, Justin Greaves.
• Warwick HRI.
Dave Chandler, Gill Prince.
• Dept of Biological
Sciences.
Mark Tatchell.
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Why are biopesticides useful?
• Often v. specific.
– ‘inherently less toxic than conventional pesticides’ (EPA).
• Compatible with other control agents.
• Little or no residue.
• Inexpensive to develop.
• Natural enemies used in ecologically-based IPM.
• Social benefits.
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In the EU, microbes & biochemicals are
registered as plant protection products
• National authorisations (PSD).
• Harmonisation of arrangements:
– Directive 91/414
– Active substances added to Annex I
(existing & new substances).
– Mutual recognition.
– Tailored requirements for biopesticides.
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Mutual recognition (EU)
• Commission admits this is not working.
• We are supposed to have an internal
market.
• Would help to overcome problem of small
market size.
• Need to support 91/414 revision that
creates three ‘eco zones’ within EU.
• ‘Rebeca’ policy action
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Why political science and biology
can relate well
• Mackenzie’s Politics and Social Science
has first main chapter on biological context
• Punctuated equilibrium models
• Nature of political science as a junction
subject, ‘tolerant eclecticism’
• Biology concerned with adaptation to
environment, also true of politics – EU and
more interdependent world
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More reasons for good relationship
• Heightened importance of environmental
problems creates new cooperation
opportunities
• Similar methodological challenges
• Collaboration with physics or chemistry
might be more difficult
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How we started work
• Concerns by biologists about partisanship,
in both disciplines real differences
between schools and disciplines
• Read and presented articles from each
other’s disciplines
• Political science articles discursive
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Shared methodological issues
• Categorisation issues – ‘lumpers’ and
‘splitters’ in biology
• Individualistic fallacy and ecological
fallacy, although in biology individualistic
fallacy overcome by data aggregation and
mathematical models
• Molecular genetics led to ‘bottom up’
science, failure to address big questions,
also EU studies?
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Methodological challenges
• Replicated, controlled experiments in
biology, model plant (Arabidopis thlania),
no model citizen
• Protocols in science less flexible than
semi-structured interviewing, also rhythms
of planting, growing and harvesting
• Both disciplines use the comparative
method
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What each side gains
• Scientific research poses questions for
regulators, e.g., species identity
• Need scientific knowledge to participate in
highly technical regulatory debate
• Scientists had considerable knowledge of
policy networks and decision-making
processes, not placed in any systematic
framework
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More gains
• Biologists state that they have gained from
more theoretical approach of political
science, in applied biology more
accustomed to identifying problem and
looking for a solution
• Only social scientist in Rebeca, but
industry needs more political
sophistication
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Lessons for EU studies
• Difficulties of cooperation between natural
and social sciences exaggerated
• Given role of EU as regulatory state, real
need for scientific and social science
knowledge to be brought together
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http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/biopesticides/
Visit our website
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