Actors, Translation And Policy Consensus: A Study Of The Policy Process Of Genetically Modified Crops In China

Transgenic breeding technology has triggered a heated social debate because of ecological security,health,cultural ethics and other issues brought about by its uncertainty.The increasingly diversified conflicts of values and interests among the government,experts and the public pose a daunting challenge to policy consensus.Consensus and consensus building have become important ways to cope with the complexity and conflict of policies,and policy consensus has gradually become an important research topic in the field of public policy.In the process of genetically modified crop policy,it is particularly important for the government "to adopt procedures and strategies that gradually approach consensus,coordinate interests of all parties,facilitate the convergence of ideas and raise the level of public awareness".This is the interest of this paper also the starting point of consideration.Our study focuses on the practice process whereby the genetically modified breeding technology and social order in China co-evolves,attempts to analyze actors and their translation process in different action situations with behaviorist process research methods and explore the interpretative framework of the process of genetically modified crop policy in China.A great many theories of traditional public policy studies provide solutions to solve scientific disputes and build policy consensus from the perspectives of power interests,rational learning and concept.Each has its own characteristics and limitations,which are characterized by the one-sidedness of analysis perspective,the "black box" of scientific knowledge in policy analysis and the separation between technology and society,which makes it difficult to reconcile conflicts in decision-making.The issue of scientific outlook directly determines how people look upon scientific disputes in public policy.By teasing out the literature on scientific view,we discover that the actor network theory(ANT)in the research field of science,technology and society(STS)is built on a practical scientific outlook and advocate grasping the overall picture of science by observing scientific practice.This coincides with the practical philosophy of Marxism.The actor network theory attaches importance to the initiative of non-human actors,advocates that scientific research or technological innovation result from the joint action of human-and non-human actors,and the concepts of knowledge and power in traditional public policy analysis are replaced by the concepts of "actor" and "translation",thus providing a more detailed comprehensive analysis perspective for the process analysis of genetically modified crop policy.The transformation of the public policy process to the construction of "actor network"can,to some extent,overcome the difficulty of opening the policy black box due to the inability to interview policy makers and obtain first-hand information.Therefore,our studyestablishes an analytical framework of "actors-translation-consensus" for the process of genetically modified crop policy,offering a specific perspective to the analysis of policy process-to start from the "connection" between actors.Studies on actor network should pay attention to time.That is to say,studies from the perspective of actor network need to focus on the composition of actor network and the stability of their behaviors and relationships in different periods.For this reason,it is necessary to divide different periods and key decisions based on different stages of policy evolution,and then analyze the actor,translation process and translation effect,by taking four key decisions as the cases.Such a unique research perspective and theoretical framework can help us understand the evolution process of China’s genetically modified crop policy and broadens the theoretical horizon of studies on public policy process.During the empirical analysis whereby the "actor-translation-consensus" framework is built and used,our study uses comparative analysis,case study,quantitative analysis of policy texts,and interview,Virtual ethnography etc.to analyze the action situations,actors,translation process and policy consensus building model.To be specific,our study makes the following arrangements in the process of empirical analysis:Firstly,in view of the genetically modified crop management policy texts,the method of social network analysis is adopted to analyze the hot topics and policy-making subjects of policies in different stages quantitatively,we dig out their stage characteristics and overall change characteristic in terms of policy content,policy goal,value orientation and policy tool,and classify into four periods from the perspective of conflict,that is,conflict warning period(1993-2000),conflict escalation period(2001-2009),conflict reconciliation period(2010-2016)and conflict stability period(2016-present).From the perspective of social action,our study analyzes policy elements and identified four key decisions in the process of policy evolution.Secondly,by analyzing the characteristics of actor,this paper analyzes actors in the process of genetic modification policy from the dual perspective of "idea-interest",and then identifies the main actors from the perspective of cognitive alliance and stakeholders respectively.The role of the public in the policy process is not predetermined,but formed in practice through translation among actors.As the role of citizens evolves,so do their demands,which in turn influence policy in different ways.Thirdly,The essence of gm crop decision-making process is to build actor network through translation process,so that the core actors can obtain the power to maintain the effectiveness and legitimacy of policy.Translation process is also the construction process of policy consensus.This paper mainly uses the core concept of "translation" to analyze four typical cases by using the four-step analysis of translation including problem,equity,recruitment and mobilization.According to two dimensions,i.e.,the adequacy of participants’consultation and consensus degree of policy results,the consensus building models in these four decision-making processes are weak consultation and strong consensus,weak consultation and weak consensus,strong consultation and weak consensus,and strong consultation and strong consensus.The corresponding knowledge governance types are science and technology governance,popular science governance,separated governance and cross-border governance.Finally,as a practical response to the GM crop policy,our study analyzes and summarizes three main factors affecting policy consensus building:the competition and conflict among actors,the ambiguity of translation path and absence of risk regulation rules.On this basis,it is proposed that the policy consensus building should follow the basic principles of knowledge co-shaping,benefit sharing and boundary governance.The core actors in the government policy process can adopt the following strategies to increase policy consensus:to strengthen cooperative governance in international competition,weave a stronger actor network and enrich the framework and rhetoric of GM dissemination.