Recent advances in the biosciences and biotechnology erode confidence in the reliability of the Biological Weapons Convention (1972). During its review conferences (1980, 1986) concerns were expressed as to the military misuse of civil research. Although some improvements were achieved at these conferences, there still exist major deficiencies related to the definition of substances and activities to be controlled, to verification and to cooperation (transfer of technology). It is suggested that in light of the positive international climate an entirely new regime should be built. This endeavor might draw on experience acquired in environmental treaty making. An institution should be entrusted with adapting the scope of the regime (controlled substances and activities) to scientific progress, with monitoring compliance, and with organizing cooperation. Thus would be matched the rigidity of international law with the flexibility required by science and politics.

As a field of study international relations has always been concerned with the problem of war. Since the second world war much attention has been given to the impact of weapons of mass destruction, most commonly in the form of nuclear weapons. More recently, a wider variety of issues have been addressed by the field, notably widening its coverage of economic, welfare and social issues. Three broad approaches to international relations have emerged: political realism, pluralism, and globalism.

Biotechnology represents a major technological revolution which will have enormous impact on the world at many levels. One impact which cannot be ignored is its potential for weaponry. This paper assesses the three international relations approaches with respect to their elucidation of biotechnology and its potential for violent and aggressive applications.

This article considers the ways in which teachers of public administration can address biopolitical issues within an established professional curriculum. The author distinguishes between the teleological and instrumental aspects of a belief system, holding that biobehavioral explanation can be pedagogically useful and can provide public administrators with a model for assessing and responding to workplace phenomena. The article proposes that undergraduate and graduate teaching impose different standards on an instructor seeking to introduce biobehavioral and biostructural concepts. The different standards arise out of the explicit and focused career instrumentality of graduate study in public administration, as well as age graded differences in receptivity to particular propositions about human nature. Finally, this article details some ways in which biobehavioral explanation can be introduced in organizational behavior classes and in classes that consider the structure of public organizations and their decision-making processes.

The biological defense research program maintained by the Department of Defense as a deterrent to the potential use of biological warfare against United States forces or national interests has been subjected to intense criticism. Concerns center on developments in the protective programs and the potential for new offensive developments through the application of biotechnology. The arms control activities intended to preclude any offensive developments are reviewed which point out the relative ineffectiveness of these control mechanisms. The nature, scope and direction of the biological defense research program and the openness of the program are noted. The proliferation of biological warfare capabilities adds to the urgency of an adequate defense program. The political nature of the problem and its relationship to control of biological warfare is examined and the interplay between the technical and the political roles leads to a potential solution. Key attributes of a control program should be enhanced efforts to develop the political framework to achieve effective control mechanisms while maintaining a complementary biological defense research program as the only effective deterrent at this time.

In agreement with the overwhelming number of experts, I certainly share the view of Chevier and Hansen that the Biological Weapons Convention needs to be strengthened. Of course it is still a matter of discussion whether the military utility of biological and toxin weapons (hereafter, respectively, BW and TW) changed after the introduction of biotechnology. It is impossible, however, to ignore the 1986 statement of the U.S. Department of Defense (1988), that:

… perhaps the most significant event in the history of biological weapons development has been the advent of biotechnology. It enables the development of new microorganisms and products with new, unorthodox characteristics… Conceptually, then, a nation or terrorist group can design a biological weapon to meet a variety of contingencies or needs… The break through and the subsequent achievements make biological warfare much more feasible and effective for countries which either are not bound by the convention or which choose to violate it.

Some would argue there is a global movement afoot to study “biopolitics.” More and more scholarly reports that help shape our understanding of the political domain from this perspective are filling the pages of research journals. This is an important era of increasing scholarly interest in the intersection of the political and biological worlds and the rapidly evolving analytical innovations available to explore this still under-explored domain. With the arrival of these new opportunities comes a new editorial team at Politics and the Life Sciences (PLS). It is a team that extends its appreciation to the Council of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences for the trust they put in it to steer the journal forward at this interesting and critical time. As well, it is a team that expresses its heartfelt gratitude to its immediate predecessors, Tony Wohlers, Maggie Kosal, and their editorial colleagues, for their determined leadership of the journal over the last three years and the easy transition they facilitated for the new team. They clearly laid a firm foundation for the next stage of the development of the journal.

This study tests two sets of competing hypotheses about the relationship between trait reactivity to positive and negative stimuli (i.e., motivational reactivity), moral stances on social principles (i.e., social morality), and political ideology. The classic view contends that a specific political ideology or social morality results from a specific motivational reactivity pattern, whereas the dynamic coordination account suggests that trait motivational reactivity modulates an individual’s political ideology and social morality as a result of the majority political beliefs in their immediate social context. A survey using subjects recruited from a liberal-leaning social context was conducted to test these hypotheses. Results support the dynamic coordination account. Reactivity to negativity (indexed by defensive system activation scores) is associated with the adoption of the dominant social morality and political ideology. Reactivity to positivity (indexed by appetitive system activation scores) is associated with the adoption of nondominant social moral and political stances.