Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:04:59.716Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Outcomes of Nuclear Technology Policy: Do Varying Political Styles Make a Difference?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Wolfgang Rüdig
Wolfgang Rüdig
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science Free University, Berlin (FB 15, WE III) Ihnestr. 22 D 1000 Berlin 33
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The paper looks at the outcomes of nuclear technology policies in five advanced Western industrialised countries which have developed major nuclear construction industries. The genesis, development and dissemination of thermal nuclear reactors is examined and found to be influenced by a range of non-technical factors. Various concepts of ‘political styles’ are explored. Different styles of technological development are identified with reference to the networks of actors relevant to the development of thermal reactor technology, taking particular account of the resources of different actors and their interrelationship. Three distinctive styles are found, associated with three different technological outcomes, two of which are associated with policy success. We conclude that political styles do make a difference, but that their applicability to the explanation of outcomes of technology policy is dependent on the resources of individual actors and the specific demands set by the technological, economic and political context.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1987 , pp. 389 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCE

Allen, W. (1977). Nuclear Reactors for Generating Electricity: US Development from 1946 to 1963. Santa Monica, CA.: RAND-Corporation.Google Scholar
Allison, G. and Carnesale, A. (1983). ‘The utility director's dilemma: The governance of nuclear power’, in Zinberg, D. S. (ed.), Uncertain Power: The Struggle for a National Energy Policy. New York: Pergamon, pp. 134–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Babin, R. (1985). The Nuclear Power Game. Montreal: Black Rose Books.Google Scholar
Benson, J. K. (1982). ‘A framework for policy analysis’, in Rogers, D. L. and Whetton, D. A. et al. , Interorganizational Coordination: Theory, Research and Implementation. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, pp. 137–76.Google Scholar
Bijker, W. E., Hughes, T. P. and Pinch, T. J. (eds.) (1987). The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bupp, I. C. and Derian, J.-P. (1978). Light Water: How the Nuclear Dream Dissolved. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Burn, D. (1967). The Political Economy of Nuclear Energy: An Economic Study of Contrasting Organisations in the UK and USA, with Evaluation of Their Effectiveness. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.Google Scholar
Burn, D. (1978). Nuclear Powerand the Energy Crisis: Politics and the Atomic Industry. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooney, J. A. (1982). The Politics of Technological Choices: Business-State Relations and Nuclear Energy Policy-Making in West Germany. Unpublished- Ph.D. thesis, MIT.Google Scholar
Dawson, F. (1976). Nuclear Power: Development and Management of a Technology. Seattle, WA.: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
DeLeon, P. (1979). Development and Diffusion of the Nuclear Power Reactor: A Comparative Analysis. Cambridge, MA.: Ballinger.Google Scholar
DeLeon, P. (1980). ‘Comparative technology and public policy: The development of the nuclear power reactor in six countries’, Policy Sciences 11, 285–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doern, G. B. (1980). Government Intervention in the Canadian Nuclear Industry. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy.Google Scholar
Dunleavy, P. (1982). ‘Quasi-governmental sector professionalism: Some implications for public policy-making in Britain’, in Barker, A. (ed.), Quangos in Britain: Government and the Network of Public Policy-Making, London: Macmillan, pp. 181–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eads, G. and Nelson, R. R. (1971). ‘Government support of advanced civilian technology: Power reactors and the supersonic transport’, Public Policy 19, 405–27.Google Scholar
Fenn, S. (1984). America's Electric Utilities: Under Siege and in Transition. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Franks, C. E. S. (1973). Parliament and Nuclear Energy. Unpublished Ph. D. thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Freeman, G. P. (1985). ‘National policy styles and policy sectors: Explaining structured variation’, Journal of Public Policy 5, 467–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldschmidt, B. (1980). Le complexe atomique. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Gowing, M. (1974). Independence and Deterrence, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945–1952, 2 vols., London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gummett, P. (1980). Scientists in Whitehall. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Hannah, L. (1982). Engineers, Managers and Politicians: The First Fifteen Years of Nationalised Electricity Supply in Britain. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heidenheimer, A. J. (1985). ‘Comparative public policy at the crossroads’, Journal of Public Policy 5, 441–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hertsgaard, M. (1983). Nuclear Inc.: The Men and Money Behind Nuclear Energy. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Hodgetts, J. E. (1964). Administering the Atom for Peace. New York: Atherton Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, T. P. (1983). Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamison, A. (1986). ‘National styles in technology policy: Comparing the national programmes for microelectronics/information technology in Sweden and Denmark’, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Study of Science, Pittsburgh, October.Google Scholar
Jamison, A. (1987). ‘National styles of science and technology: A comparative model’, Sociological Inquiry 57, 144–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jänicke, M. and Mez, L. (1987). Materialien zur Elektrizitatswirtschaft in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Berlin: Forschungsstelle für Umweltpolitik, Free University, Berlin.Google Scholar
Jordan, A. G. (1981). ‘Iron triangles, wooly corporatism and elastic nets: Images of the policy process’, Journal of Public Policy 1, 95–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, A. G. and Richardson, J. J. (1982), ‘The British policy style or the logic of negotiation?’, in Richardson 1982, pp. 81–109.Google Scholar
Keck, O. (1980). ‘Government policy and technical choice in the West German reactor programme’, Research Policy 9, 302–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keck, O. (1985). Policymaking in a Nuclear Program: The Case of the West German Fast Breeder Reactor. Lexington, MA.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Kemp, R. (1986). ‘Institutional adaptation in the UK nuclear technology industry’, Public Administration 64, 335–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitschelt, H. (1980). Kernenergiepolitik: Arena eines gesellschaftlichen Konfiikts. Frankfurt: Campus.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, H. (1983). Politik und Energie. Energie-Technologiepolitiken in den USA, der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Frankreich und Schweden. Frankfurt: Campus.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, H. (1986). ‘Four theories of public policy making and fast breeder reactor development’, International Organization 40, 65–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lijphart, A. (1975). ‘The comparable-cases strategy in comparative research’, Comparative Political Studies 8, 159–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lilienthal, D. (1980). Atomic Energy: A New Start. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Lowi, T. J. (1964). ‘American business, public policy, case-studies, and political theory’, World Politics 6,677–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowi, T. J. (1972). ‘Four systems of policy, politics and choice’, Public Administration Review 32, 298–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, N. J. D. (1979). Energy in France: Planning, Politics and Policy. London: Europa Publications Ltd.Google Scholar
MacKenzie, D. and Wajcman, J. (eds.) (1985). The Social Shaping of Technology. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Massey, A. (1986). ‘Professional elites and BNFL’, Politics 6 (1), 9–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mez, L. (1977). ‘Die Atomindustrie in Westeuropa’, Technologie und Politik 7, 04, 124–88.Google Scholar
Mullenbach, P. (1963). Civilian Nuclear Power: Economic Issues and Policy Formation. New York: Twentieth Century Fund.Google Scholar
Nau, H. R. (1974). National Politics and International Technology: Nuclear Reactor Development in Western Europe. Baltimore, MD.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Nehrt, L. C. (1966). International Marketing of Nuclear Power Plants. Bloomington, IN.: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, R. R. (1984). High-Technology Policies: A Five-Nation Comparison. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.Google Scholar
Nieburg, H. L. (1964). Nuclear Secrecy and Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press.Google Scholar
Orlans, H. (1967). Contracting for Atoms. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papon, P. (1979). ‘Centres of decision in French science policy: The contrasting influences of scientific experts and administrators’, Research Policy 8, 384–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, R. et al. (1977). Development and Commercialization of the Light Water Reactor, 1946–1976. Santa Monica, CA.: RAND-Corporation.Google Scholar
Pinch, T. J. and Bijker, W. E. (1984). ‘The social construction of facts and artefacts: or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other’, Social Studies of Science, 14,399–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radkau, J. (1983). Aufstieg und Krise der deutschen Atomwirtschaft, 1945–1975. Reinbek: Rowohlt.Google Scholar
Rhodes, R. A. W. (1985). ‘Power-dependence, policy communities and intergovernmental networks’, Public Administration Bulletin 49, 4–31.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. (ed.) (1982). Policy Styles in Western Europe. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. J. and Watts, N. S. J. (1985). National Policy Styles and the Environment: Britain and WestGermany Compared. Berlin: International Institute of Environment and Society, Science Centre, Berlin.Google Scholar
Richardson, J., Gustafsson, G. and jordan, G. (1982). ‘The concept of policy style’, in Richardson 1982, pp. 1–16.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, N. (1982). Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rothwell, R. and Zegveld, W. (1985). Reindustrialization and Technology. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Rush, H. J., MacKerron, G. and Surrey, J. (1977). ‘The Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor: A case study in reactor choice’, Energy Policy 5, 95–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saltzman, S. and Schuler, R. E. (eds.) (1986). The Future of Electrical Energy: A Regional Perspective of an Industry in Transition. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Scheinman, L. (1965). Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Surrey, J. and Thomas, S. (1980). World Wide Nuclear Reactor Performance: Lessonsfor Technology Policy (SPRU Occasional Paper Series No. 10). Brighton: Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex.Google Scholar
Temples, J. R. (1980). ‘The politics of nuclear power: A subgovernment in transition’, Political Science Quarterly 95, 239–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ullrich, O. (1977). Technik und Herrschaft. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Ullrich, O. (1979). Weltniveau. Berlin: Rotbuch.Google Scholar
Vogel, D. (1986). National Styles of Regulation: Environmental Policy in Great Britain and the United States. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wagner, P. and Wollmann, H. (1986). ‘Social scientists in policy research and consulting: Some cross-national comparisons’, International Social Science Journal 38, 601–17.Google Scholar
Weinberg, W. M., Spiewak, I., Barkenbus, J. N., Livingston, R. S. and Phung, D. L. (1985). The Second Nuclear Era: A New Start for Nuclear Power. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Weingast, B. R. (1980). ‘Congress, regulation and the decline of nuclear power’, Public Policy 28, 231–55Google Scholar
Williams, R. (1980). The Nuclear Power Decisions: British Policies, 1953–1978. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Wirt, F. (1981). ‘Professionalism and political conflict: A development model’, Journal of Public Policy 1, 61–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, M. (1987). ‘Policy community, policy network and comparative industrial policies’, Paper presented at the UK Political Studies Association Conference,Aberdeen.Google Scholar
Zysman, J. (1983). Government, Markets and Growth. N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar