Pressure Group Competition and GMO Regulations in Sub-Saharan Africa - Insights from the Becker Model
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Hiroyuki Takeshima
It is widely acknowledged that pressure groups play influential roles with regard to decision making on the agricultural and food use of genetically-modified organisms (GMO) in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, there has been relatively minimal examination of when these lobbying efforts actually influence GMO policies, and how such influence changes when other exogenous constraints associated with GMO improve. Using the model of competition between pressure groups developed by Becker (1983), this paper shows that if anti-GMO lobbying appears to be working, it is likely because conditions in SSA are unfavorable to the introduction of GMO. This result is validated by a discussion of existing capacity constraints for the development, regulation, and dissemination of GMO in SSA countries, and of how these constraints may make conditions less favorable despite the reported potential benefits of GMO. The findings of this paper confirm the importance of relaxing capacity and institutional constraints, and suggest that these constraints should be addressed before considering a possible lack of political will for promising GMO in SSA countries. Political influence may not have as much of an impact on the slow adoption of GMO by SSA countries as insufficient scientific and institutional capacity.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Tax Incidence When Quality Matters: Evidence from the Beer Market
- Market Efficiency in the Non-Genetically Modified Soybean Futures Market
- Do Taxes Produce Better Wine?
- Economic Effects of Purity Standards in Biotech Labeling Laws
- Does the Prevalence of Contract Hog Production Influence the Price Received by Independent Hog Producers?
- Impact of Country-of-Origin Labeling on Bovine Meat Trade
- Geographical Indications and The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS): A Case Study of Basmati Rice Exports
- Measuring Consumers' Attachment to Geographical Indications
- Willingness to Pay for Fair Trade Coffee: A Conjoint Analysis Experiment with Italian Consumers
- Pressure Group Competition and GMO Regulations in Sub-Saharan Africa - Insights from the Becker Model
- Price Transmission and Volatility in the Greek Broiler Sector: A Threshold Cointegration Analysis
- Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting: A Literature Review and Synthesis of Related Market Information Research
