Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTORS
NUMBER OF NEWS
Ecologists 42
Institutions 103
Parties 89
Companies (Syngenta, Monsanto,…) 52
Experts, scientists 61
Editors 6
Farmers against GMO 64 (exception : 2 farmers pro GMO)
Consumers 19
Table 16: Political and social actors who explain their point of view or whose opinions
are reported
After reflecting about the wide range of information appeared in
Saint-Galler Tagblatt, we notice that:
• Public sphere grows around the 27th November. The popular initiative
plays a key direct role.
• The indirect role of this direct democratic tool is also important if we
consider PNR 59 “Uses and risks in spreading genetically modified
plants” as an effect of the popular initiative and the moratorium to
GMO cultivations. Considering the vote as a popular will of more
information about gen technologies, Swiss institutions an interest
groups are already preparing new scientific arguments that will
influence next deliberations and decisions.
• The combination between direct and indirect procedures of decision
creates permanent and temporary discussion groups. As a result of
this great number of actors taking part in the GMO debate, there is
also an increasing number of news about that topic which are spread
in the public sphere
• Saint-Galler Tagblatt considers as the most important sources the
federal ones. It is logical considering that GMO legislation is established
at the federal level
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FEDERALISM, DIRECT
DEMOCRACY AND THE
QUALITY OF PUBLIC
DELIBERATION: THE
GMO DEBATE
José Luis Egío