Three Bio-Realms: Biotechnology and the Governance of Food, Health, and Life in Canada

Biotechnology has become one of the most important issues in public policy and governance, altering the boundaries between the public and the private, the economic and the social, and further complicating the divide between what is scientifically possible and ethically preferred. Given the importance of biotechnology in shaping relations between the state, science, the economy, and the citizenry, a book that explores the Canadian biotechnology regime and its place in our democracy is timelier than ever.

Three Bio-Realms provides the first integrated examination of the thirty-year story of the democratic governance of biotechnology in Canada. G. Bruce Doern and Michael J. Prince, two recognized specialists in governance innovation and social policy, look at particular ‘network-based’ factors that seek to promote and to regulate biotechnology inside the state as well as at broader levels. Unmatched by any other book in its historical scope and range, Three Bio-Realms is sure to be read for years to come.

G. Bruce Doern is a professor emeritus in the School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University. He is the author and co-author of numerous books on Canadian politics and policy, including Faith and Fear: The Free Trade Story, with Brian Tomlin, and Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure, Process, with Richard Phidd. Michael J. Prince is the Lansdowne professor of Social Policy in the Faculty of Human and Social Development at the University of Victoria.