The Precarious Expert: Nationalism, Science, and the State During China’s GMO Controversy

• In Event: 4366 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 9. Global Norm Formation

Abstract

Who can depoliticize scientific controversies in technocratic, authoritarian states? While China initially embraced genetically modified organisms (GMOs), vociferous controversy destabilized this consensus. Drawing on 37 interviews with key actors, 12 months of field-research, and textual analysis Chinese media sources, I leverage China’s GMO controversy to make a dual-pronged argument. First, I show how the strategies employed in the construction of China’s agrobiotech sector shape the dynamics of the controversy. The Chinese state and its allies have tried to “purify” GM-foodstuffs by portraying these crops and, by association, themselves, as national products tasked with rescuing the nation from starvation and foreign dependence. The critical idioms articulated against GMOs mimic these values and vocabulary, and thus, reproach state legitimacy. Second, I use the controversy to expose the instability of the co-opted expert position in a technocratic, authoritarian state. “Science” has become the dominant political ideology of contemporary China. This places China’s GMO scientists in a difficult position. While researchers’ ties to the state have afforded them unprecedented influence over China’s developmental trajectory, their politicized professional identity has also undercut their ability to make credible scientific claims and made them targets of public censure. Overall, I show that while the Chinese Communist Party-state seeks to harness science and technology as a legitimizing ideology and economic driver, semi-incorporating them within the state also gives rise to new, often unintended, dynamics that the party-state must address. Concurrently, while the state’s co-optation of science and technology expands experts’ influence and opportunities, the experts become reliant on the state for their own legitimacy and incapable of depoliticizing controversy.

Author

• Abigail Coplin, University of Pennsylvania