RELU PROGRAMME:
GOVERNMENT POLICY TO
ENCOURAGE
INTERDISCIPLINARY
RESEARCH
RETAILERS AND CONSUMERS
DO NOT LIKE PESTICIDE
RESIDUES ON FRUIT AND
VEGETABLES
ALSO SET OF ISSUES RELATING
TO POSSIBLE BIODIVERSITY
LOSS (FLORA AND FAUNA)
EVIDENCE DOES NOT SUGGEST
ANY SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS ON
HUMAN OR ANIMAL HEALTH
FROM RESIDUES
MEDIA FRAMING IS QUITE
HOSTILE
IMPACT ON RURAL
ECOSYSTEMS: NOT A DIRECT
LINK, MORE FROM INTENSIVE
PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
NEVERTHELESS, THERE IS A
PERCEPTION PROBLEM
PEOPLE ARE PREPARED IN
QUESTIONNAIRES TO PAY A
LOT MORE FOR PESTICIDE
FREE FOOD
STATED BEHAVIOUR MAY NOT
CORRESPOND TO REVEALED
BEHAVIOUR – RETAILERS
RELY A LOT ON THE LATTER
KEY RESEARCH PROBLEM:
 Consumers want fewer chemical
pesticide residues on food
 Residues may deter them from
consuming fruit and vegetables –
a health policy objective
 Bio-pesticides, making use of
naturally occurring substances,
have been around for 20+ years
 There are very few commercial
products on the market
 Yet they are environmentally
friendly – host specific, safe to
humans and wildlife, and produce
little or no toxic residue
WE ARE USING CONTROL OF
APHIDS IN LETTUCE AS A
MODEL SYSTEM
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
ON SOCIAL SCIENCE SIDE
PARALLEL PROJECT AT
ROTHAMSTEAD/IMPERIAL AT
WYE LED BY ECONOMISTS
SUGGESTS THAT MARKET
FAILURE IS KEY PROBLEM:
MARKET TOO SMALL TO
PROVIDE RETURNS
POLITICAL SCIENCE
PERSPECTIVE EMPHASISES
GOVERNMENT FAILURE:
ENTRY COSTS TO MARKET
RAISED BY ONEROUS
REGISTRATION PROCESS
DESIGNED FOR CHEMICAL
PESTICIDES
THEORIES OF REGULATION
AND OF REGULATORY STATE
SYSTEMS OF REGULATION CAN
HAVE UNINTENDED
CONSEQUENCES:
 Bureaucratic theory suggests that
there is a tendency for
mechanisms to displace goals, for
process to become more
important than outcomes
 Policy instruments are considered
in isolation from their wider
effects
 Possible budget maximisation
effects (Niskanen/Hood)
PARADIGM OF REGULATORY
STATE IN POLITICAL SCIENCE
DEVELOPED BY MORAN
CORE FEATURES:
 Displacement of ‘command’ state
(‘Keynesian welfare’ state) by
regulatory state. Seen in ideal
typical terms as progressive –
displacement of ‘club’
government
 Involves more indirect forms of
state control (which do not,
however, necessarily reduce state
power – Wolfe)
 Replacement of self-regulation
which was seen to fail both in
terms of economic efficiency and
public accountability
Moran always took the view that the
present form of the regulatory state
is an imperfect transition
In his book saw it as having a Janus
face: a democratising quality,
because it enforces more
transparency on elites, but an
authoritarian quality because it
centralises and controls
This latter feature encourages it in
the direction of failures and
catastrophes – which subverts its
control capacities
He has recently become less sanguine
about the regulatory state. His
forthcoming textbook sees it in ‘a
threatening and interventionist light’
‘Over the last couple of years I have
become more impressed by its
authoritarian potential’
There is a possibility that it may fail
both in terms of broad democratic
accountability, but also effectiveness
In our case the regulatory system
could offer a barrier to the adoption
of bio-pesticides
HOOD ET AL. – ‘THE
GOVERNMENT OF RISK’
Explore and concern nine regulatory
regimes, two concerned with
pesticides
Central premise: risk regulation
regimes can vary even within the
same ‘regulatory state’
Scientific expertise is essential in
pesticides but highly contested.
Multiple interest groups and
substantial media attention.
High (increasing) level of
organisational complexity in regime
because a form of multi-level
governance involving EU
PSD example of budget
maximisation?
Research questions:
 How onerous is regulatory
system?
 Does retail led governance
provide an alternative?
 Does more govt. intervention
using taxation instruments on the
Danish model provide an
alternative?
POLICY
COMMUNITY/NETWORK
MODELS
Would suggest:
 Agro-chemicals policy community
is highly developed whereas biopesticides has a weak network
 Policy networks are good at
managing incremental change,
but only innovate in conditions of
major crisis or exogenous shock
Research task: identify and explore
interactions of major actors
ALSO INTERESTED IN
EXPLORING SHIFT FROM
POLITICS OF PRODUCTION TO
POLITICS OF COLLECTIVE
CONSUMPTION
Michele Micheletti in Political Virtue
and Shopping develops the concept of
‘individualised collective action’, a
form of citizen engagement that
combine self-interest and the general
good
General question here: can isolate,
individualised forms of politics have
a collective content, e.g., internet.
Is a collective, interactive content
essential to our definition of politics?
Or is such a definition retro?
Role of non-governmental
organisations
Problem of how consumer is
represented – essentially by proxy by
retailers
Retailers are commercial entities,
albeit enjoying a high level of trust
from citizens (store cards v. identity
cards)
Have considerable oligopolistic
economic power and growing
political power. Flow of power
down the food chain raises normative
issues.
Is this an effective form of
governance. Can retailers ‘ban’
pesticides more effectively than
government?
Many different methods of biological
control:
(Earliest method was introduction of
exotics)
1. Providing more homes for insects
which feed on pests – habitat
management to enhance natural
enemy survival and performance
– beetle banks
2. Semiochemical technologies:
using chemically mediated
interlocutors between organisms
and their environment – depletion
problem
3. Inundation of a naturally
occurring pathogen into a crop –
our approach, but persistence
issues. Do bio-pesticides persist
in the environment when released
on a large scale?
LONG TRADITION IN
POLITICAL SCIENCE OF
INTEREST IN SOCIAL BIOLOGY
METHODOLOGICAL
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
POLITICAL SCIENCE AND
MICROBIOLOGY
1. THE ABILITY TO REPLICATE
Went out to woods in area from
Shropshire to Wiltshire and took soil
samples in December, isolate fungi
on agar by February
Testing hypothesis from Ontario
study that there is different
microbial diversity on farmland and
woodland
Some sampling issues:
1. Geographical spread of farmland
and woodland in Ontario
2. Insect baiting technique used
could bias results – although a
consistent bias
3. Possible influence of soil type
4. Issues arising from proximity
comparisons
2. DIFFERENT APPROACHES
TO THE INDIVIDUALISTIC
AND ECOLOGICAL
FALLACIES
Ecological fallacy – identify
statistical relationships at the
aggregate level which do not
accurately reflect the corresponding
relationship at the individual data
level
THE INDIVIDUALISTIC
FALLACY IS THE OPPOSITE OF
THE ECOLOGICAL FALLACY
Generalising from individual
behaviour to aggregate relationships
USE OF THE MODEL PLANT IN
BIOLOGY: Arabidopis thalania
(Non-commercial member of the
mustard family)
Instead of studying many different
plants
 Easy and inexpensive to grow
 Produces many seeds
 Responds to stress and disease in
same way as most crop plants
 Has a small genome (genetic
complement) facilitating genetic
analysis
Use of the model plant is possible
because all flowering plants are
closely related. Complete sequencing
of all the genes of a single,
representative plant will yield
knowledge about all higher plants
(also applies to protein function)
Human behaviour much more
diverse
IN OUR PROJECT WE ARE
TAKING A PARTICULAR APHID
THAT BREEDS ON POPLAR
TREES AND ATTACKS LETTUCE
ROOTS
BUT WE CAN GENERALISE TO
ALL SALAD CROPS?
GENERAL ISSUE OF SCALING
UP IN BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
FROM PLANT POT TO FIELD TO
FARM TO COUNTY
POLITICAL SCIENCE
APPROACH IS MORE TOP
DOWN, HENCE MORE
VULNERABLE TO ECOLOGICAL
FALLACY
Technique we have used to promote
interdisciplinary understanding
Not engaged in advocacy. Want to
make a broadly based assessment of
benefits and costs of contribution of
bio-pesticides to sustainability