Abstract

BERGER, Mauricio  and  BERGER FILHO, Airton Guilherme. Nano-governance, nano-regulation and nano-citizenship? An analysis of normative scenarios in Brazil and Argentina. Mundo nano [online]. 2022, vol.15, n.28, e00039.  Epub Oct 18, 2021. ISSN 2448-5691.  https://doi.org/10.22201/ceiich.24485691e.2022.28.69659.

The work presents advances in our research on nanotechnology development in Brazil and Argentina, with an analysis focused on its governance at international and national scales. By governance we understand a systemic function, of modulation and compatibility of public-private organizational formats, norms, public policies, partially overlapping or in collision. The metamorphosis observable in the new regulatory tendencies speaks to us of changes in the state bureaucratic structures, and in the form of law to regulate in matters that concern the protection of health and the environment, and the exercise of citizenship in the face of nanotechnologies. Methodologically, we identified and compiled documentary and legal sources and interviews with public agents, academics, professionals (industry, health, occupational safety) and members of civil society organizations. With these inputs we carried out a descriptive and reconstructive analysis of regulatory scenarios in both countries, theoretically framed in the theory of governance. Our first working hypothesis: the distortions and substitution of democratic-representative mechanisms that are produced by the expansion of governance have the effect of modulating the modern state structure of the law, and as a corollary, they place a series of obstacles in the way of citizens’ exercise of their rights and participation in public decisions about the use and impacts of nanotechnologies.

Keywords : nanotechnologies; governance; citizenship; precautionary principle; regulation; regulatory scenarios.

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