When Doctors Shape Policy: The Impact of Self-Regulation on Governing Human Biotechnology

Abstract

This paper investigates the development and adoption of governance modes in the field of human biotechnology. As the field of human biotechnology is relatively new, voluntary professional self-regulation constituted the initial governing mode. In the meantime, with the exception of Ireland, all Western European countries have moved towards greater state intervention. Nevertheless they have done so in contrasting ways and the resulting governance modes for assisted reproductive technology (ART) and embryonic stem-cell research vary greatly. Instead of imposing their steering capacity in a ‘top-down’ fashion, governments have taken pre-existing self-regulatory arrangements in the field into account and built up governance mechanisms in conjunction with private actors and pre-existing modes of private governance. Our analysis demonstrates that the form and content of the initial self-regulation explain why the self-steering capacity of the medical profession was largely or at least partially preserved through hybrid governance systems in Britain and in Germany, while in France the self-regulation was entirely replaced by governmental intervention.