Germany: "Elite precaution" alongside continued public opposition

Germany is the EU member state with the most difficult situation (besides A ustria) for marketing genetically modified (CM) crops and food. At the some lime, it shows the least administrative effort to respond to the reasons f or this situation - public suspicion and protest. Regulators advocate speci fic precaution-related measures, including market-stage monitoring; these m easures, however, do not relate to the primary demands of critics and oppon ents. The administration's claim to prioritize scientific evidence over pol itics constructs the administration and the public as two separate worlds w ithout real mediation. This conflicts with the ever-growing demands for pub lic participation. Participation in a broader sense, however, is not depend ent on formal opportunities. In this conflict, NGOs bring up issues of demo cracy, transparency and precaution through public mobilization. This strate gy results in an anticipated consumer boycott and thereby a commercial bloc kage of CM products. These dynamics can be analysed as "reflexive moderniza tion", which implies greater public aversion to externally imposed risks. T he politico-administrative system responds with a legalistic-scientistic ap proach in order to increase safely but without participatory measures to ov ercome predictive uncertainty and value conflicts. Environmental and consum er protest has led the technology providers to revise their political strat egies in the biotechnology conflict. Thus, in Germany reflexive modernizati on takes place without reflexive politics.