Participatory Decision Making: A comparative analysis of the public debates on GMOs conducted in France and Britain

This paper presented at the Fourth Global Conference Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship explores participatory governance through analysis of two case studies; the ‘Conference de Citoyens’ in France held in 1998 and GM Nation? A public debate held in the UK in 2003. The authors found a shift towards participative democracy in two countries with long traditions of dirigiste styles of representative democratic governments. Consumers' power in the marketplace was also found to be shaping the GMO issue in Europe.(Original source: http://www.inter-disciplinary.com/ptb/ejgc/ejgc4/lieberman%20paper.pdf)