Back to the future Reflecting on the legacies of Lynton K. Caldwell, Robert H. Blank, and Andrea Bonnicksen

Abstract

Reviewing the work of Lynton Caldwell, Robert Blank, and Andrea Bonnicksen is both a privilege and a challenge. These three scholars rank among the key figures in the development of biopolicy as a legitimate research and teaching subfield within political science. Each of them worked in academia, on significant bioethical advisory boards, and with policymaking entities, and also contributed to numerous externally funded research projects. Across long and prolific careers, Caldwell, Blank, and Bonnicksen engaged seriously with the political, social and ethical issues raised by significant advances in many bio-scientific domains. This essay analyzes several of their works across two broad themes: 1) the development of the subfields of biopolitics and biopolicy, and 2) the tension between science policy and democratic governance. While each of them wrote significant and well-received books, the focus here is on insights to be gleaned from an idiosyncratic selection of their scholarly articles across the time period, 1966 to 2007. To borrow Michel Foucault's term, this brief and necessarily selective archaeology of the published journal record nevertheless demonstrates the significance, durability and prescience of the authors' insights. (I expect that at least one, if not all three, of these authors might raise objections to the mention of Foucault, but the term “archaeology” in this instance is apt.)