Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 248-267 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | New genetics and society |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 26 Jul 2018 |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 26 Jul 2018 |
Abstract
NIPT has become a matter of controversy in Germany over the past years, there is now a widespread concern that it raises fundamental social and ethical questions. Starting from the assumption that responsible governance requires governance actors to address these questions, the article examines how the main governance actors realized their responsibility in the sense of conceiving and performing it. Building on the pragmatic sociology of critique, we study how actors are doing responsibility within a given institutional and political context. We show that critical interventions disrupted institutional routines and caused governance actors to struggle with conflicting commitments of complying with institutional rules and exercising responsibility by taking social and ethical considerations into account. Whereas these conflicting commitments posed a predicament for political decision-makers, who solved it through shifting responsibility for social and ethical issues elsewhere, there was no such predicament for the producers; for them, routine and responsibility converged.
Keywords
- accountability, accounts, controversy, governance, NIPT, responsibility
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Sciences(all)
- Health(social science)
- Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
- Genetics
- Medicine(all)
- Health Policy
- Nursing(all)
- Issues, ethics and legal aspects
Sustainable Development Goals
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In: New genetics and society, Vol. 37, No. 3, 26.07.2018, p. 248-267.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Realizing responsibility. Institutional routines, criticalintervention, and the“big”questions in the controversyover non-invasive prenatal testing in Germany
AU - Braun, Kathrin
AU - Könninger, Sabine
N1 - Funding Information: The research for this article has been funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the research framework Innovation and Technology Analysis, reference number PLI1676.
PY - 2018/7/26
Y1 - 2018/7/26
N2 - NIPT has become a matter of controversy in Germany over the past years, there is now a widespread concern that it raises fundamental social and ethical questions. Starting from the assumption that responsible governance requires governance actors to address these questions, the article examines how the main governance actors realized their responsibility in the sense of conceiving and performing it. Building on the pragmatic sociology of critique, we study how actors are doing responsibility within a given institutional and political context. We show that critical interventions disrupted institutional routines and caused governance actors to struggle with conflicting commitments of complying with institutional rules and exercising responsibility by taking social and ethical considerations into account. Whereas these conflicting commitments posed a predicament for political decision-makers, who solved it through shifting responsibility for social and ethical issues elsewhere, there was no such predicament for the producers; for them, routine and responsibility converged.
AB - NIPT has become a matter of controversy in Germany over the past years, there is now a widespread concern that it raises fundamental social and ethical questions. Starting from the assumption that responsible governance requires governance actors to address these questions, the article examines how the main governance actors realized their responsibility in the sense of conceiving and performing it. Building on the pragmatic sociology of critique, we study how actors are doing responsibility within a given institutional and political context. We show that critical interventions disrupted institutional routines and caused governance actors to struggle with conflicting commitments of complying with institutional rules and exercising responsibility by taking social and ethical considerations into account. Whereas these conflicting commitments posed a predicament for political decision-makers, who solved it through shifting responsibility for social and ethical issues elsewhere, there was no such predicament for the producers; for them, routine and responsibility converged.
KW - accountability
KW - accounts
KW - controversy
KW - governance
KW - NIPT
KW - responsibility
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85051994455&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14636778.2018.1495555
DO - 10.1080/14636778.2018.1495555
M3 - Article
VL - 37
SP - 248
EP - 267
JO - New genetics and society
JF - New genetics and society
SN - 1463-6778
IS - 3
ER -