The communication of risk technologies, and particularly of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), has been studied extensively with regard to how they are culturally received, socially constructed, and legitimized or delegitimized in public or media discourse. These studies have shed light on controversies over biotechnologies and how they play out in terms of their social perceptions and acceptance as well as pointed to the major role of scientific evidence, normative standards, and values in the construction of risk perceptions and meanings attached to GMOs. The controversial character of GMOs is, however, not only interesting with regard to the larger public discourse. It also challenges governments that plan to liberalize GMO regulation because they have to assess the possible electoral risk associated with the policy. How governments frame such endeavors to liberalize GMO regulation is therefore of great interest—but has not received much attention, so far. Instead, the strategic communication of allegedly unpopular policies has been treated prominently in association with welfare state retrenchment and foreign policy (and military interventions in particular). In the context of welfare state cutbacks, people argues that welfare state retrenchment, marked by pressures to avoid blame for unpopular policies, dictates new political strategies, one of these being strategic communication. Strategic communication can be conceptualized as a specific type of a political strategy that is directed at the public sphere to increase the public acceptance of a policy through a suitable justification or framing.
With regard to welfare retrenchment, strategic communication is contended to have the potential to shield governments from electoral losses or even turn an initially unpopular policy into a vote winner (Elmelund-Præstekær & Emmenegger, 2013). Similarly, in the realm of foreign policy, research has shown that political actors care a lot about how foreign policy decisions are communicated, especially if they are about going to war (Butler, 2012). In both cases, the reasons why political actors are presumed to resort to strategic communication are straightforward: As welfare state cutbacks are unpopular with the electorate and as foreign military interventions carry the risk of casualties and unpopular long-lasting engagements far away from home, governments try to avoid blame through a suitable framing.
GMO policies clearly are different in a number of respects, but policies aimed at regulating biotechnologies are also risky for policy makers given that they are usually met with considerable popular resistance (Stephan, 2015). At the same time, perceptions and opinions about GMOs are more malleable than opinions about the welfare state for instance, because they are not directly linked to divisive cleavages and have less material consequences (Midden et al., 2002). How governments sell GMO liberalization to the public through strategic communication may therefore be even more important.
Previous research has established a tight relationship between the concept of blame avoidance communication and policies designed to retrench the welfare state (Hinterleitner, 2015) as well as between communication and the foreign policy decision to participate in a war whereas only a few studies have analyzed the governmental communication of risk technologies. However, no effort has hitherto been made to systematize the insights of these bodies of literature and to reflect about whether the specific characteristics of the policies affect how they are communicated. To address this gap, we will first briefly review which insights can be taken away from the studies on the communication of welfare state cutbacks, foreign military interventions, and risk technologies. We then go on to synthesize the three strands of literature with a view to developing theoretical expectations about the governmental communication of GMO liberalization. In a third step, we apply our arguments to the cases at hand, the governments of Norway and the United Kingdom.
Research on the communication of foreign military interventions has grown rapidly, especially after the U.S. administration of George W. Bush started the global “war on terror” in reaction to the terrorist attacks on 9/11 (De Graaf et al., 2015). The seminal study has looked at how frames in governmental communication have been represented in media reports and investigated the macro-links between media and administration (“cascade activation model”). Moreover, several studies have focused more directly on the government and its moralistic rhetoric presenting the enemies as “evil” and “inhumane” with the intention to garner support (Maggio, 2007). Another feature of that governmental communication was the attempt to link foreign policy decisions to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Evidently, the use of a moralistic rhetoric, as well as drawing connections to 9/11, does not come as a surprise given that it is difficult to frame a war outside the United States and the possible casualties involved in a positive manner or even as a necessity (as done when cutting welfare). A rather similar framing (although nuanced slightly differently depending on the country) has been used by other leaders in the “coalition.”
Although the issue of risk and uncertainty marks the most pronounced component in risk technology communication, several other recurring elements have been registered. Besides justifications in terms of economic and environmental costs and benefits, which do, however, not play a core role, biotechnology has been associated with the ideas of progress and the national interest, e.g., through increased competitiveness (Sato, 2013).
From the review of the communication of three generally unpopular and politically risky policies, namely welfare state cutbacks, foreign military interventions, and risk technologies, striking differences between the communicative patterns emerge. From a theoretical perspective, it is reasonable to assume that these systematic differences stem from specific policy characteristics. Policy characteristics not only determine why a policy is unpopular, but they also imply certain strategic incentives that translate into communication strategies. Certainly, we cannot know whether a certain instance of policy communication was strategically intended as such because policy actors’ motives are generally unknown (Campbell, 2002). However, the policy communication can be understood as strategic in a broader sense. Given their policy- and vote-seeking motives, governments can be presumed to have strong incentives to adapt their policy communication to strategically relevant policy characteristics as well to the context. With regard to their broader communication effort, it is thus possible to speak of strategic communication: even if it was not entirely planned in advance it would still amount to an “emergent strategy” as long as that communication effort shows consistency and presuming that it is guided by policy actors’ persistent policy and vote motives. Moreover, not knowing policy actors’ specific intentions behind their (individual) statements is ultimately not troubling, because we can always examine their language use and whether it systematically relates to the conditions under which it occurs.
To see how features of policy communication relate to characteristics of the policy, the well-researched case of welfare state cutbacks provides a sound theoretical starting point. The first evident feature of welfare policies is that they involve a material redistribution of money with clearly identifiable winners and losers. Due to these characteristics, communicating positively about welfare state cutbacks is very tricky and governments therefore often resort to blame avoidance. In sharp contrast, policies that regulate risk technologies do not have such direct material consequences, but their unpopularity is more value-based because they touch upon what is perceived as right or wrong, natural and socially, and even ethically acceptable. Admittedly, GMO policies also have a material component (e.g., for farmers growing the crops) and welfare state policies also touch upon values (e.g., who deserves social assistance), but whereas material concerns dominate welfare policies, GMO policies much more touch upon ethical considerations (Huppenbauer, 2012). The case of foreign military interventions lies somewhat in between, as the nature of the policy is only partly material (soldiers abroad), but also touches on major societal values linked to good and evil, and peace and war. In sum, it is theoretically sound to assume that the nature of the unpopularity of a policy (relative weight of material losses and value-based opposition) affects how governments communicate it to the public.
A second feature of welfare state policies is that they are intimately linked to the economy. Therefore it is rather easy for governments to communicate cutback policies as a direct reaction to economic/financial conditions or institutional contradictions (Kuipers, 2006). Such a direct link to exogenous pressures is usually more difficult in the case of risk technologies. While it may be possible in specific cases (e.g., framing nuclear energy as a necessity for fighting global warming), linking risky biotech policies to exogenous sources in terms of a “no-alternative”-communication seems hardly possible. Military interventions, again, lie somewhere in between the two: Military interventions can be linked communicatively to external threats, but a nonmilitary alternative is much more open to discussion than the insolvency of a nation-state. Hence, the question of whether a policy can be linked to an exogenous source is expected to strongly matter for governments’ communication strategies.
Finally, the third feature of welfare state policies is that the certainty of the consequences from cutbacks is high whereas the scope of the consequences is usually limited (a somewhat lower income). Admittedly, the certainty of a cutback can be reduced—for instance by implementing pension cuts only for future generations or making cutbacks dependent on the development of other indicators (i.e., adjustment of benefits according to wages only if the budget is balanced). Nevertheless, the consequences of welfare cuts are generally certain, which leads to a communication that is characterized by blame avoidance. In contrast, the certainty of consequences from risk technologies is much lower—while the potential scope of the consequences is higher. The same is true for military interventions, where the certainty of negative consequences is limited (but, generally, more certain than in the case of risk technologies) while their scope may be enormous (casualties and war). Hence, this aspect of potentially far-reaching risks is an important feature to be taken up in governmental communication. These examples also highlight how exactly this third criterion differs from the first one: There may be value-based policies that have certain consequences: liberalizing abortion rights is a very value-centered policy but the consequences of liberalization are very clear.
Given that the justification of GMO liberalization as normatively acceptable should be attuned to the sociocultural setting, we expect that the communication differs in this regard, namely that the Norwegian government emphasizes the respect of the precautionary principle in its legislation more prominently, whereas the British government communicates more openly the opportunities and benefits that may result from GMO liberalization. With regard to the source of policy change, we have argued that it is typically difficult to link policies on risk technologies to exogenous pressures, which may allow governments to convincingly paint a negative picture of the status quo and present policy change as the only alternative (Kuipers, 2006). This is also true for GMO liberalization, which can hardly be seen as a reaction to external conditions. Moreover, the context in both countries does not differ in this respect, which is why we can formulate our second expectation for both countries, namely that little defensive justification that presents the status quo as very negative and points to the necessity and urgency of the policy in both countries is to be expected.
Finally, the third element of our theoretical framework emphasizes the fact that the scope of possible consequences of risk technologies is potentially far-reaching but very uncertain. This is especially true for GMOs, where the risk affects food and therefore the health of the consumers. Following Beck (2014), risk technologies are associated with intangible threats and side effects. Their complexity makes them the object of contested (expert) knowledge. Given the uncertainty of the consequences, we would, therefore, expect that governments in both countries try to dispel concerns about risks associated with the policy and point to the consent of (credible) actors, e.g., scientific experts.
However, as with the cultural norms and values on which communication draws, differences regarding the risk culture, with a lower acceptance in Norway, should also affect the intensity with which governments draw on such a communication. Specifying the third expectation further, we, therefore, expect that dispelling concerns. An effort to depict GMO policies as normatively acceptable Norwegian government emphasizes the precautionary principle more, British government communicates more openly the chances and benefits that may result from GMO liberalization. Little defensive justification that presents the status quo as very negative and points to the necessity and urgency of the policy in both countries
As in all EU members states, the release and commercial use of GMOs in Britain depends on a rigorous authorization procedure at the EU level. Applications have to be evaluated by the European Food Safety Authority and adopted by the European Commission. The regulation of GMOs has been a contentious issue on the EU level but also particularly in the United Kingdom. In fact, some of the changes in public opinion can be explained in light of crucial events and public debates that followed from them. Specifically, a number of events and developments in the late 1990s brought a watershed in agricultural biotechnology discourse and public opinion. A shipment of genetically modified soy that had not been labeled, followed by the BSE crisis and several other food-related occurrences, all led to a different public perception of biotechnology in general and GM food in particular. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw an intense public debate on the issue of GM food becoming highly salient in the media and coverage taking on a negative tone (Bauer, 2001). In light of these preceding intensified public debates, the Cameron government’s renewed impetus for GM crops hardly occurred in a vacuum.
Media coverage and the public debate had before been strongly marked by ethical arguments and accounts as well as arguments related to the utility and the risks associated with GM food (Listerman, 2010). It is hardly astonishing that this time of increased public skepticism toward GM food was also when the EU and individual countries, such as the United Kingdom, opted for more restrictive policies with regard to GM crops. The Blair government initiated a renewed debate about GM food in the early 2000s in which it, however, still faced considerable headwind. In the public debate, the British public was overwhelmingly depicted as being uniformly opposed to GM crops whereas the government was framed as undemocratic, solely working toward the interest of political and economic interests. Moreover, the debate manifested considerable skepticism toward scientific evidence and indicated that citizens did not buy into the justifications based on scientific progress and development that were put forward by biotech companies (Augoustinos, 2006). This certainly did not leave an ideal legacy for future attempts to liberalize GMOs and sell such policies to the public.
However, an opportunity arose as the European Commission attempted to address the regulation of GM crops with a proposal in 2010. The proposal foresaw a faster approval mechanism in combination with individual member states having the possibility to opt out of GMO use on their territory even after approval at the EU level. The clearly pro-GM government formed in May 2010 and led by David Cameron welcomed the EU’s advances in this area and utilized it for a renewed effort in liberalizing GM crops. The Secretary of State for Environment, Caroline Spelman, announced that the government would be “the most pro-GM government yet” (Jowit, 2010). Owen Paterson replaced Spelman in September 2012 and was himself succeeded by Elizabeth Truss in July 2014. Considerable impetus stemmed from Paterson, who strongly promoted GM crops and sped up commercial growing. In a critical comment by Zac Goldsmith (2013) in The Guardian, he was even called “the minister for GM hype.” Paterson also revived a Commission proposal from 2010 and worked on a plan to relax barriers on the cultivation of GM crops in combination with the possibility of an “opt out” by single member states hoping that the more rapid approval procedures would spur commercial growing of GM crops in Britain.
The UK government thus helped to engineer a proposal on the EU level, which was later amended by the European Parliament to improve, among other things, environmental protections, accountability, and safeguards for the freedom of non-GM farming. The compromise reached in June 2014 by the EU member states was backed by the European Parliament (EP) in November 2014 through the EP’s Environment Committee vote on its recommendation for the second reading. In January 2015, the EP finally agreed to the changes in EU law. They entered into force in April and cleared the way for individual countries’ decisions to prohibit GM crops approved by the European Union. With the adoption of this law in April 2015, the European Union has effectively conferred national governments more power in deciding the cultivation of GMOs. At the same time, the new regulation allowed for a fast-track process for the approval of GM crops, which was of particular interest for the British government. In this context of liberalization, convincing citizens about the safety and usefulness of commercial use of GM crops in the United Kingdom has explicitly declared the government’s (especially Paterson’s) goal.
Building on the results of the qualitative content analysis, the British government’s policy communication was based on four major lines of justification, with two of them being closely intertwined. First, the government pointed to societal and economic benefits for the United Kingdom and even beyond, while, second, also arguing that not embracing GM crops would mean being left behind in a dynamic global market. Third, the government underlined its commitment to safety as a guiding principle in food regulation. Related to this way of legitimizing its policy stance was, fourth, the assertion that the debate on GMOs should be informed first of all by scientific evidence. The most visible way of presenting GMO liberalization was by pointing to alleged benefits deriving from GM crops. Among the respective statements, references to general benefits to society etc. were much more frequent than claims about specific benefits for certain groups like consumers or farmers. While a number of such statements point to specific goals, challenges, and areas, they generally remain vague, e.g., as to how exactly embracing GM crops will yield benefits.
One of the key agricultural technologies is of course GM. It’s no secret that I think GM technology has the potential to be a crucial tool for helping us tackle the global challenges of food security and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. There are significant environmental benefits, like reduced spraying and diesel. Interestingly, besides presenting a less restrictive policy on GM crops as advantageous, the government also made strong efforts to present the issue in a way that is well known from research on the communication of welfare retrenchment politics. Especially Paterson repeatedly pointed to risks associated with not opting for GM food, as this would mean falling behind in the global market and in biotechnology research. Such statements were often quite explicit. By continuing to ignore the evidence of the safe use of GM and its benefits, there is a real risk that we will deny ourselves access to the potential offered by new plant breeding techniques and other innovative technologies. This affects not only Europe but those parts of the world where agricultural innovation is desperately needed now. (Paterson, 2014)
It is conceivable that a negative framing of the status quo and the presentation of existing problems is not only a characteristic feature of welfare reform communication but rather a common aspect in most political communication—which was also used against our expectation in the case of GMO liberalization. What is also clearly perceivable in the government’s account, especially in statements like the one cited above, is an economic perspective on the issue. The government repeatedly depicted GMO regulation in terms of its consequences for Britain as a business location, as exemplified by the claim that Europe risks sending a message that we are anti-science and anti-innovation. We are sending very mixed messages to industry and society. Without clarity, the industry will not invest in Europe. (Paterson, 2014). The government thus put a business perspective at the center of its justification for its GMO policy. It did so, however, by lending this perspective national importance, presenting GMO policy as a matter of national competitiveness. It is striking in this context that the government often spoke not just of Britain but of “Europe” has to catch up or risk being left behind. While it did not explicitly ascribe blame to the European Union it acknowledged the European dimension in the regulation of GM crops. Although the government tried to depict the status quo as negative, this does not truly go against our third expectation. It has still sold its policy on GM crops as its own project, never stressed the necessity or urgency of realizing its policy goals, and instead focused on dispelling the idea of significant risks besides advocating general benefits of its policy.
Besides the important component of the communication highlighting benefits and costs, the analyzed communication is also very much characterized by a strong normative dimension. Paterson promoted GM food by linking it to the ideas of individual freedom and freedom of choice (for farmers and consumer) as well as the notion of (scientific) progress. With regard to consumer choice, I would like to make clear that no-one, least of all me, is suggesting the wholesale adoption of GM in the UK’s food chain. I believe that people should be able to walk into a supermarket and choose whether to buy local organic potatoes or those produced from a blight-resistant GM variety grown in the UK. (Paterson, 2012). Generally, Paterson kept a more prudent tone with regard to such statements. This becomes more obvious in the frequently made statements in which he refers to the importance of safety as a guiding principle and the importance of evidence for this safety. For instance, Paterson made it clear that advancing GM research and its application “doesn’t mean compromising on safety. All GM products should continue to be subject to robust, scientific risk assessment. But products which pass those strict safety controls should be made available on the market in the usual way” (Paterson, 2013c). Remarkably, he almost never claimed the safety of GM food without at least citing evidence that would back these claims. This strong emphasis on the safety aspect corroborates our fourth expectations according to which dispelling safety concerns will be a major trait in the communication.
References to science were, however, not only linked to the safety arguments in the communication of the British government. Rather, the government’s communication in some instances also exhibited a strong faith in the notion of scientific progress, or as the Minister for Universities and Science Willetts (2013) stated: “Science is not the enemy.” Not only did it explicitly portray GM crops as a high-tech tool several times, but it also made appeals to “embrace scientific advances” (Truss, 2015). Furthermore, this reliance on science extended to the assessment of the safety of GMOs. On the one hand, the government emphasized that evidence had to be provided to prove the safety of GM use. Besides the message that GMO policy has to be based on evidence, the government, on the other hand, brought forward numerous factual claims that the safety of GM use was backed by evidence, e.g., when Paterson stated that GM was not an experiment because “[i]t has clearly been shown to be a safe, affordable, environmentally and economically beneficial technology” (Paterson, 2014). Moreover, Paterson frequently cited third parties and experts backing the government’s evaluation of GM foods as safe. What also becomes tangible in this statement is a conciliatory stance that is present in other parts of Paterson’s communication. Overall, as was expected, the British government made a strong effort to address the aspect of risk in liberalizing GMOs. It did so by presenting GMOs as a matter of scientific progress, as merely one (beneficial) technology among others, with calculable and negligible risks.
When governments adopt policies that are unpopular with a large group of citizens, strategic communication is crucial. This general finding from the literature on welfare state cutbacks and risky foreign military interventions also holds when governments communicate their intentions to liberalize GMO policies. This is the first major finding of this article. It adds to the literature on the communication of risk technologies because it focuses on governments instead of analyzing the broader public or media discourse. However, and this is the second and arguably more important contribution of this study, governments use different frames when they talk about GMO liberalization than when they justify a foreign military intervention or a welfare state cutback. The communication is less oriented toward pure blame avoidance and more active and positive—a pattern which can be explained by the specific characteristic of the policy: As GMO policies do not relate to material losses (as a cutback of pension benefits) but concern a certain understanding of what is normatively acceptable and a risk assessment, governments try to depict GMO liberalization as a safe technology that is normatively acceptable in light of prevalent evaluative standards. And they strongly use scientific expertise to support this claim. Our qualitative content analysis of government communication in Britain and Norway has shown that the uncertainty and scope of negative consequences from GMOs make it highly important to dispel the risks associated with these technologies, e.g., by using expert bodies.
At the same time, the sociocultural context in general and the risk culture, in particular, seem to affect what frames governments use. Given that the British society is generally more open to risk, the British government resorted to a much more proactive communication, emphasizing, e.g., the chance to improve the country’s general economic situation and competitiveness, whereas the Norwegian communication was much more defensive after its initial strategy to frame the liberalization proactively (e.g., as a question of freedom of choice) provoked strong resistance. Altogether, our analysis moves the literature on the governmental communication of policies beyond the confines of specific policy areas, which analyses of policy framing and communication have hitherto focused on. The theoretical framework is designed to work in different contexts and for different policies and that both context and policy characteristics affect how governments sell the unpopular policies to their citizens. Following this line of research across policy areas, future studies should explore if the theoretical framework travels to other policies and countries.