| This study presents a theory of regulatory contagion to describe the conditions under which authorities might adopt or adapt foreign regulations, rather than invent entirely new ones. In doing so, it departs from traditional explanations of regulation formation, which rely largely on domestic actors competing within domestic settings to explain outcomes. Regulatory contagion is applied to the development of agricultural biotechnology regulations in the United States and Europe during the last quarter of the 20th century. It is shown to apply to three distinct stages of agricultural biotechnology's commercial development. The first stage is the regulation of the 1970s associated with the Asilomar Conference and the resulting ban on deliberate release. The second stage is the deregulation of deliberate release and subsequent field tests of the 1980s. The third stage is the reregulation effort of the 1990s, with opponents seeking stricter control of biotechnology crops and food. More broadly, the study documents how domestic regulations can have foreign sources. Consequently, it is makes an important contribution to the study of, and argues for an expansion of the phenomena considered by those with an interest in "globalization."... |
