Theorising Culture and Nature

Abstract

Having identified public opinion and ethical or moral concerns about agbiotech as important elements for explaining transatlantic regulatory divergence, it is now time to develop the broader cultural-political approach. Cultural factors constitute the explanatory core of this book, while history serves as an analytical method to demonstrate the persistent relevance of cultural values and identities. This task is complicated by the fact that the concept of culture is one of the most contested terrains in the social sciences. Raymond Williams (1976: 87) famously judged that ‘[c]ulture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language’, although, for many decades, disciplines such as history or sociology have put the concept to good use. In political science, however, culture has remained an under-theorised subject (Reeves 2004). This neglect of cultural analysis might well have ended with the controversial ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis by Samuel Huntington (1996). Yet, perhaps this flurry of interest does not constitute a genuine break with the past. As Kratochwil (1996: 203) notes, ‘[f]ar from representing a mere personal preference […], questions of culture and identity have always been part and parcel of our analysis of the social world.’ He diagnoses a degree of ‘amnesia’ in recent times which has prevented a more widespread use of cultural concepts.