Call for papers: 'New Approaches to International Risk Governance'

Panel: 'New Approaches to International Risk Governance: From Reactive to Anticipatory Policy-making'

Panel: 'New Approaches to International Risk Governance: From Reactive to Anticipatory Policy-making'
Managing the risks of new technologies has become an important focal point of international governance. For issues ranging from genetically modified food to information technology, and nuclear energy to nanotechnology, new global institutions have sprung up to provide coordinated policy responses. Importantly, for many of these issues, anticipatory governance is the crucial need of the hour (i.e. governance that goes hand in hand with technology development and deployment, rather than following after risks have been recognized and evidence gathered. Anticipatory global risk governance remains inadequate, however, in important ways: the institutional architecture is often fractured and ineffective; significant time lags still persist between the emergence of new risks and institutional policy responses; and participation in rule setting is highly uneven. This panel considers new approaches to global governance of technology risks, focusing on ways to improve effectiveness of anticipatory forms of global governance.
We invite papers that consider any aspect of the global governance of technology and risk. Papers may either focus on specific case studies or on cross-cutting themes in global risk governance, or combine both. Please send your paper proposal (title and 150 word abstract) together with affiliation and contact details to r.falkner@lse.ac.uk, as early as possible but no later than 24 May 2008.
Dr Robert Falkner, Department of International Relations, London School of Economics, UK; eMail: R.Falkner@lse.ac.uk
Dr Aarti Gupta, Environmental Policy Group, University of Wageningen, The Netherlands; eMail: Aarti.Gupta@wur.nl