Elite Ideology and Risk Perception in Nuclear Energy Policy

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 383-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Rothman ◽  
S. Robert Lichter
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

Changing U.S. attitudes toward new technologies are examined, as are explanations of such changes. We hypothesize that increased concern with the risks of new technologies by certain elite groups is partly a surrogate for underlying ideological criticisms of U.S. society. The question of risk is examined within the framework of the debate over nuclear energy. Studies of various leadership groups are used to demonstrate the ideological component of risk assessment. Studies of scientists' and journalists' attitudes, media coverage of nuclear energy, and public perception of scientists' views suggest both that journalists' ideologies influence their coverage of nuclear energy and that media coverage of the issue is partly responsible for public misperceptions of the views of scientists. We conclude with a discussion of the historical development of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s and the relation of this movement to the public's declining support for nuclear energy.

Stopping the Bomb

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas L. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
International Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Selective Approach ◽  
Credible Threat ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

This book examines the historical development and effectiveness of US efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Drawing on hundreds of declassified documents, the first part of the book shows how the anticipation of nuclear domino effects in the 1960s and 1970s led the United States to strengthen its nonproliferation policy, moving from a selective approach—which was relatively permissive toward allies acquiring nuclear weapons—and toward a more universal policy that opposed proliferation across the board. Most notably, Washington spearheaded the establishment of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 and adopted sanctions legislation in the late 1970s that credibly threatened to cut off support to countries seeking nuclear weapons. The second part of the book analyzes how effective these policies have been in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. Statistical analysis suggests that a credible threat of sanctions has deterred countries dependent on the United States from even starting nuclear weapons programs over the last several decades. Meanwhile, in-depth case studies of French, Taiwanese, Pakistani, and Iranian nuclear activities illustrate the conditions under which sanctions succeed against ongoing nuclear weapons programs. The findings hold important implications for international security and nonproliferation policy.

scholarly journals A Road Less Travelled: The American Biker Film of the 1960s and 1970s

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
William Liell Carter
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Hollywood Cinema ◽  
The Road ◽  
New Hollywood ◽  
The Media ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S

<p>In the period 1966-1974 there were at least forty independent, low-budget feature films made in the United States about motorcycle gangs. These films were inspired by media coverage of the notorious exploits of actual gangs in the post-War period. They depict bikers as violent libertines who live non-conformist lives and engage frequently in anti-social behaviour. The films are marked by motorcycle 'runs,' wild parties, brawls, and sexual violence. While the biker film has received some critical attention, it has not been analysed to the same extent as that more reputable and better known genre of the same period, the road movie. This thesis will expand on existing research by initially examining the factors that shaped the biker film, such as the media panic about real gangs, the influence of the counterculture, exploitation filmmaking, and New Hollywood cinema. The project will also investigate the narrative features of the genre, and link this analysis to debates around post-classical narration. Finally, the thesis will interpret the representation of gender in the biker film. This thesis will argue that the biker film should be situated within a continuum of male-oriented genres that involve violent spectacle. It will also make a contribution to the ongoing research on New Hollywood cinema.</p>

scholarly journals Why do Environmental and Ecological Economics Diverge?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikola Petrović
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Economics ◽  
Ecological Economics ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
Sociology Of Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Strong Programme ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Intellectual Movements ◽  
Bridge Building ◽  
Scientific Fields

Environmental economics and ecological economics became established scientific fields as a result of the growth and the success of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Using the strong programme in the sociology of scientific knowledge and the general theory of scientific/intellectual movements, this article compares four pairs of scholars (two pairs of scholars appropriated for these fields and fields' founders during the emergence and establishment of the fields). The article depicts how their institutional, ideological and scientific backgrounds contributed to the divergence of these fields. Practitioners of environmental economics and ecological economics were influenced by different strands of the environmental movement. Environmental economics has epistemological and institutional links with environmentalism and ecological economics with ecologism. Different types of interdisciplinarity were used in these fields—a bridge building type of interdisciplinarity in the case of environmental economics and a restructuring and integrative in the case of ecological economics.

Delivering Instruction to the Distance Learner

2010 ◽  
pp. 196-227
Author(s):  
Lawrence A. Tomei
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Traditional Education ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Nontraditional Education ◽  
Distance Learner ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
National Trends

During the 1960s and 1970s, a number of alternatives to traditional higher education developed in the United States as a direct result of numerous social upheavals. National trends that included the rapidly rising costs of traditional education, curiosity with informal and nontraditional education, increasingly mobile populations, growth of career-oriented predilection, the quickening pace of new technologies (and, therefore, the need for learning new skills), and general public dissatisfaction with educational institutions brought about a mounting interest in distance learning.

“Original Environmentalists”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory B. LeDonne
Keyword(s):  
Great Plains ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Native Species ◽  
American West ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
Natural World ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Land Use Plan ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Central Belief

Scholars and the broader public have commonly viewed ranchers in the American West as part of the “environmental opposition,” a group of natural resource, or extractive, industries that opposed the modern environmental movement that developed during the 1960s and 1970s. Yet ranching differed from other natural resource industries in ranchers’ relationship with the environment and in the development of ranchers’ own form of environmentalism. This rancher environmentalism emphasized the conservation and wise use of the environment but was more complex and nuanced than observers typically recognized and did not view ranchers’ relationship with the natural world as merely transactional. Their environmentalism encompassed an appreciation for the sublime and sentimental feelings toward the land as well as the central belief that humans were a fundamental, necessary part of nature. Ranchers’ disagreements with traditional environmentalists largely resulted from those environmentalists’ emphasis on the preservation of the environment rather than maintaining a role for people in nature. This study uses the rewilding movement and the buffalo commons as examples to illustrate ranchers’ environmental beliefs. Rancher environmentalism led ranchers to contest the rewilding movement that evolved in the 1990s due to its association with radical environmentalists and its goal of recreating wilderness without humans. Their antagonism extended to the idea of the buffalo commons, a proposal to return bison and other native species to the Great Plains, and the real-world attempts to establish such an expanse. Ranchers did not support the buffalo commons because they equated it with rewilding and viewed it as calling for their removal. This opposition persisted despite the proposal’s origins as a land-use plan open to maintaining a place for humans on the Great Plains.

Why Incumbents (Usually) Prefer Weak Intellectual-Property Rights

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-154
Author(s):  
Jonathan M. Barnett
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Technology Markets ◽  
Railroad Industry ◽  
Venture Capital Firms ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Weak Patents

This chapter challenges the conventional assumption that incumbents in technology markets lobby for strong IP rights to erect entry barriers and capture market rents. In the railroad industry in the late nineteenth century, in the software industry in the 1960s and 1970s, and in patent-reform debates since the mid-2000s, large vertically and horizontally (systems-level) integrated firms outside the pharmaceutical industry have generally advocated for weaker patents or resisted the extension of IP protection to new technologies. By contrast, smaller R&D-intensive entities and venture-capital firms have generally expressed the opposite position. A comprehensive study of all amicus briefs filed in Supreme Court patent-related litigation during 2006–2016 confirms this entity-specific divergence in IP-policy preferences. Historical and contemporary evidence supports the hypothesis that in a significant number of industries, weak patents protect incumbents by impeding entry by smaller innovators that lack comparable non-IP complementary capacities by which to capture returns on innovation.

Capital, Environmental Degradation, and Economic Externalization

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Parr
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
Environmental Externalities ◽  
Environmental Legislation ◽  
Environmental Movements ◽  
The World ◽  
Advanced Capitalism ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One

Neo-liberal principles of individualism, privatization, consumption, and unconstrained choice underpinning advanced capitalism are rapidly becoming the predominant strategy used in response to widespread environmental degradation and climate change. This essay describes and analyzes capital’s production of negative environmental externalities. Despite a slew of environmental legislation passed by governments the world over—a response to the demands of the environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s, environmental degradation persists. Indeed, as the continual rise in greenhouse gas emissions exemplifies, environmental degradation has worsened. How has this happened? On the one hand, the rise of neo-liberal governance and the forces of patrimonial capitalism have compromised the action of the state; on the other, capital has corrupted the autonomy, discourse, and activist charge of the mainstream of the environmental movement, turning it into an ally of private wealth.

Risk-Mitigating Technologies: The Case of Radiation Diagnostic Devices

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Galasso ◽  
Hong Luo
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perception ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Radiation Risk ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Ct Scanners ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

We study the impact of consumers’ risk perception on firm innovation. Our analysis exploits a major surge in the perceived risk of radiation diagnostic devices following extensive media coverage of a set of overradiation accidents involving computed tomography (CT) scanners in late 2009. Using data on radiation diagnostic device patents and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) product clearances, we find that the increased perception of radiation risk spurred the development of new technologies that mitigated such risk and led to a greater number of new products. Using CT scanners as a case study, we provide an in-depth characterization of two different types of risk-mitigating technologies that firms developed after the shock. Firm-level analysis shows that, although firms were similarly responsive in their patenting activities, large incumbents were significantly more responsive than smaller firms in terms of new product introductions, and, in the case of CT scanners, large incumbents were also significantly more responsive in terms of the more radical type of risk-mitigating technologies. We also provide qualitative evidence and describe patterns of equipment usage and upgrade that are consistent with increased risk perception and, consequently, a greater willingness to pay for safety. Overall, our findings suggest that changes in risk perception can be an important driver of innovation, can shape the direction of technological progress, and can impact market structure. This paper was accepted by Ashish Arora, entrepreneurship and innovation.

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