The governance of nanotechnology

I study the making of science policy in relation to nanotechnology R&D. The subject is interesting as nanotechnology is receiving much attention at present and lots of money is spent on it, at the same time as there is quite a few uncertainties around nanotechnologies and nanoscience. I am particularly interested in how the decision-making is exercised and whether or not nanotechnology policy-making could be an example of post-academic/mode2 governance. As I have a past in political science, I'm also interested in democracy and democratisation - where do the citizens and society fit in? Is there such a thing as good governance of nanotechnology, and would it make the picture less uncertain?

"Governance" narrowed down

Governance is a rather large area to study, so I am focusing particularly on the regulatory and promotional decision-making, the balance between the two (i.e. innovation policy), though there does not seem to be much balance to speak of at present as little is done about regulation yet (which is interesting in itself of course). You can't discuss such a "balance" without entering an ethical mine-field, so ethics is added to my list of interests automatically.

"World" narrowed down

Taking on the whole world would take more time than the 3-5 years I'm planning to spend being a PhD student, so I've had to narrow my scope a bit to include three countries: UK (is somewhere in between having and formulating a policy, and I live here - it's convenient), Finland (has a very commercially focused clearly defined policy), and Sweden (doesn't have a policy at all though there is research going on anyway).