Innovation and the commons: lessons from the governance of genetic resources in potato breeding
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Innovation and the commons: lessons from the governance of genetic resources in potato breeding Koen Beumer1 · Dirk Stemerding2 · Jac. A. A. Swart3 Accepted: 6 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This article explores the relation between innovation and resources that are governed as commons by looking at the governance of potato genetic resources, especially in the context of the emergence of hybrid diploid potato breeding that will enable potato propagation through true seeds. As a new breeding tool, hybrid diploid potato breeding may not only revolutionize traditional potato breeding practices, it may also strongly affect current governance modes of potato genetic resources as a commons. Contrary to conventional accounts of the commons that treat technological innovation mainly as an exogenous factor, we argue that technological innovation can better be understood as an endogenous factor. In particular, we develop a co-production framework of innovation and the commons that draws attention to the different ways in which innovation, commons and its governance interact. Using this framework, we demonstrate that the constitution of potato genetic resources as a commons cannot be understood without considering the various ways in which technological innovation affects resources and mediate how these are governed. While reversely, technological innovations themselves are also enabled and constrained by users who govern potato genetic resources as a shared resource. We argue that changes in the governance of genetic resources can be understood as a change from one socio-technical constellation to another, whereby innovations, resources, and institutions are continuously co-produced. Keywords Commons · Innovation · Genetic resources · Potato · Hybrid breeding · Co-production
Introduction and background The governance of resources as commons is increasingly recognized as a feasible alternative to modes of resource governance characterized by dominating top-down governmental control or private ownership. Since the late 1980s, a burgeoning body of literature has emerged demonstrating the success and versatility of community governance of the commons (e.g. Ostrom et al. 1999; Stern et al. 2002; Laerhoven and Ostrom 2007). Besides the knowledge commons, however, the relation between the commons and innovation * Koen Beumer [email protected] 1
Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Princetonlaan 8a, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands
2
Independent Researcher Biotechnology & Society, Enschede, The Netherlands
3
Science and Society Group, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
has largely escaped attention—not only when it comes to the way innovation may impact the commons but also how resources for innovation can be governed as a commons. In a time when it has become increasingly clear that neither complete governmental control over innovation nor the laissez-faire economics of neoliberal markets are without problems, it is worth investiga
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