Uncertainty, institutions and regulatory responses to emerging technologies: CRISPR Gene editing in the US and the EU (2012–2019)

Abstract

This study aims to improve theoretical accounts of regulatory responses to emerging technologies by proposing a model of regulatory development, which incorporates a role for types of uncertainty and for existing regulatory institutions. Differently from existing theories of regulatory development, the model proposed here posits a sequence of cyclical activities where regulatory responses arise in incremental fashion out of efforts to make sense of emerging technologies and to ponder the applicability of existing regulatory tools. The model is discussed on the basis of the comparison between regulatory responses to the emergence of CRISPR gene editing in the US and the EU in the period 2012-2019. The comparison between the two cases suggests how regulatory responses to emerging technologies are affected by expectations of future technological and regulatory developments and by existing regulatory institutions.

Governance landscapes for emerging technologies: The case of cryptocurrencies

“…For example, Firlej and Taeihagh (2020), observe regulatory systems pointing to human control as a solution to challenges of governing autonomous technologies. This add to other perspectives, including to some degree that of Asquer and Krachkovskaya (2020), that observe a complex technologist-regulator codevelopment dynamic in production of new technologies.…”

“…Individually and collectively, they organize their viewpoints and identify others' viewpoints. In some sense, actors are navigating through what others have observed as regulatory "path dependencies" including uncertainties relating to actor dynamics and also the codevelopment of the regulated technologies (Asquer & Krachkovskaya 2020).…”

Assessing the regulatory challenges of emerging disruptive technologies

“…Regulatory responses to technological disruptions 5.3.1. Regulatory response in face of uncertainty from emerging disruptive technologies "Uncertainty, Institutions and Regulatory Responses to Emerging Technologies: CRISPR Gene Editing in the US and the EU (2012-2019)" by Asquer and Krachkovskaya (2021) examines the development of regulatory responses to the CRISPR gene-editing technology in the EU and USA. It uses the comparison between the two case studies to demonstrate how path dependencies quickly develop in these sectors but also how they are undermined by future development of the technology.…”

The role of externalities and uncertainty in policy design: evidence from the regulation of genome editing

“…Discovered in 2012, CRISPR (which stands as the acronym of Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) allows the manipulation of the genome in a way that is more accurate, precise and efficient than former methods. CRISPR is selected as a case of emerging technology whose effects on individuals and the environment are still relatively unexplored (Asquer and Krachkovskaya 2020;Sarewitz 2015). The next section will present details of the method followed in this study.…”