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Ludlow, Karinne; Binks, Peter --- "Regulating Risk: The Bigger Picture" [2010] ELECD 716; in Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew (eds), "International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies

Editor(s): Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446731

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Regulating Risk: The Bigger Picture

Author(s): Ludlow, Karinne; Binks, Peter

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

8 Regulating risk: the bigger picture
Karinne Ludlow and Peter Binks


While a picture may be worth a thousand words, the frame is also influen-
tial to our understanding of the depicted scene. It is well known that the
framing of a problem is influential to the approach taken to the problem.1
`Framing' is used here to refer to `the process by which people develop a
particular conceptualization of an issue or reorient their thinking about an
issue' (Chong and Druckman, 2007: 104). As Hanke et al. (2002: 7) note
`how individuals frame a dispute has implications for how they see the
dispute unfolding and whether and how they envision it being resolved'.
Changing the frame can change the way an issue is seen and therefore
approached. For example, changing the framing of the problem of global
pandemic from a public health issue to one of trade or national security,
changes expectations of which international bodies should respond to the
problem, in turn changing the way we expect the problem to be approached
and the forms of response adopted. The problem of the recent human swine
flu pandemic could have been framed as an issue only of human health
requiring a response from international organizations such as the World
Health Organization (WHO) and national organizations responsible for
public health. However, some of the 50 jurisdictions that responded to
the problem by prohibiting the import of pigs into their jurisdiction for
a period, did so because they characterized the issue, ...