Agenda Dynamics and Policy Subsystems Baumgartner1991
Agenda Dynamics and Policy Subsystems Baumgartner1991
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Cambridge University Press and Southern Political Science Association are collaborating with JSTOR to
digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Politics.
http://www.jstor.org
FrankR. Baumgartner
Bryan D. Jones
Texas A&M Universityl
Rapid change in public policy outcomes often occurs, but most theories of pluralism empha-
size only incrementalism.2 Yet from a historical view, it can easily be seen that many policies
go through long periods of stability and short periods of dramatic reversals. Often the grand
lines of policy may be settled for decades during such critical periods of mobilization.
In this paper, we argue a single process can explain both periods of extreme stability and
short bursts of rapid change. This process is the interaction of beliefs and values concerning a
particular policy, which we term the policy image, with the existing set of political institu-
tions-the venues of policy action. In a pluralist political system, subsystems can be created
that are highly favorable to a given industry. But at the same time, there remain other institu-
tional venues that can serve as avenues of appeal for the disaffected. Here we use the case of
civilian nuclear policy to examine the process by which policy images find a favorable reception
in some institutional venues but not others, and how the interaction between image and venue
can lead to the rapid creation, destruction, or alteration of policy subsystems. We rely on data
from a variety of sources to trace agenda access of the nuclear power issue in each of the policy
venues available.
R apid change in public policy outcomes often occurs, but most theories of
pluralism emphasize only incrementalism. This overemphasis on incremen-
talism has caused many to view pluralism as inherently conservative. Yetfrom
a historical view, it can easily be seen that many policies go through long
periods of stability and short periods of dramatic reversals. These long pe-
riods of stability have led political scientists to focus on the equilibrium of
current policy compromises rather than on the punctuations in the equilib-
rium by dramatic change. However, the grand lines of policy may be settled
for decades during a critical period of mobilization.
In this paper we argue that pluralism is neither conservative nor radical,
but that a single process can explain both periods of extreme stability and
'Authors listed alphabetically to indicate equal contributions to this article and to the larger
project of which it is a part.
2The authors would like to thank the Center for Energy and Mineral Resources and the
College of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University, for support for some of the research reported
here. Doug Jones, Susanne Marrs, and Jeff Talbert provided expert research assistance. We
would also like to thank John Kingdon, Roger Cobb, Charles Elder, Bob Boynton, Jeff Berry,
and Dave King for their comments.
short bursts of rapid change. This process is the interaction of beliefs and
values concerning a particular policy, which we term the policy image, with
the existing set of political institutions-the venues of policy action. In a
pluralist political system, subsystems can be created that are highly favor-
able to a given industry. But at the same time, there remain other institu-
tional venues that can serve as avenues of appeal for the disaffected. Here we
use the case of civilian nuclear policy to examine the process by which policy
images find a favorable reception in some institutional venues but not oth-
ers, and how the interaction between image and venue can lead to the rapid
creation, destruction, or alteration of policy subsystems.
One characteristic of pluralist government often and accurately noted
by political scientists is the ability of single-industry economic interests
to insulate themselves from the influence of large-scale democratic forces
through the creation of relatively independent depoliticized subgovern-
ments. Such systems of limited participation are thought to be highly resis-
tant to change (Cobb and Elder 1983) and have intrigued political scientists
for decades (see, for example, Bentley 1908; Odegard 1928; Griffith 1939;
Maass 1951; Freeman 1955; Cater 1964). However, many systems of limited
participation have been quickly and dramatically altered during certain pe-
riods of history. One such period was the mid-1970s in the United States,
when policy subsystems relating to tobacco, pesticides, air and water pol-
lution, airlines, trucking, telecommunications, and nuclear power were
all destroyed or radically altered (Fritschler 1989; Bosso 1987; Jones 1975;
Derthick and Quirk 1985; Robyn 1987; Campbell 1988). The changing land-
scape of policy subsystems has sensitized policy scholars to diversity in
policy arrangements (Thurber 1990; Ripley and Franklin 1990), but so far
they have not focused on the dynamics of construction, alteration, and the
occasional demise of powerful subsystems. We argue that the 1970s were not
simply an aberration, but rather the breakup of systems of limited partici-
pation, like their creation, can be explained in a systematic way. We pro-
pose an approach which helps account for the creation and destruction of
subsystem politics.
Our approach treats political actors as capable of strategic action by em-
ploying a dual strategy. On the one hand, they try to control the prevailing
image of the policy problem through the use of rhetoric, symbols, and policy
analysis. On the other hand, they try to alter the roster of participants who
are involved in the issue by seeking out the most favorable venue for the
consideration of their issues. In this process, both the institutional structures
within which policies are made (see March and Olsen 1989) and the indi-
vidual strategies of policy entrepreneurs (see Riker 1986; Kingdon 1984) play
important roles.
In the nuclear power industry in the United States, government and in-
dustry leaders were able to create an impressive and seemingly all-powerful
Because images have implications for which actors in society will be at-
tracted to a given debate, policymakers have the incentives to attempt to
manipulate them, and many political scientists have noted their attempts to
change public or elite understandings of the nature of important policy ques-
tions (see Boulding 1956; Edelman 1964, 1989; Elder and Cobb 1983; King-
don 1984; Riker 1986; and Stone 1989). Images are based on facts, of course,
but public attention tends to focus strongly on one set of facts at a time, and
exhibits a remarkable ability to dwell on the positives while ignoring the
negatives during one period; only a small change in environment can later
cause the attention of nonspecialists to swing to the opposite extreme. Tech-
nically complex issues such as nuclear power can be discussed either in
terms of their scientific and engineering details, or in terms of their social
impacts. When they are portrayed as technical problems rather than as social
questions, experts can dominate the decision-making process. When the
ethical, social, or political implications of such policies assume center stage,
a much broader range of participants can suddenly become involved (Baum-
gartner 1989). Where a positive image dominates, specialists have strong
arguments for demanding that political leaders grant them the autonomy and
the resources necessary to get on with their work. Policy subsystems may be
created during periods when public understandings of the questions in-
volved is overwhelmingly positive.
Related to the policy image is the question of its venue. There are no
immutable rules that determine which institutions in society will be granted
jurisdiction over particular issues. Depending on the issue and on how it is
understood by those potentially involved, it may be assigned to an agency of
the federal government, to private market mechanisms, to state or local au-
thorities, to the family, or to any of a number of institutions. We term this
the venue problem. Each venue carries with it a decisional bias, because
both participants and decision-making routines differ. When the venue of a
public policy changes, as often occurs over time, those who previously domi-
nated the policy process may find themselves in the minority, and erstwhile
losers may be transformed into winners. The image of a policy and its venue
are closely related. As venues change, images may change as well; as the
image of a policy changes, venue changes become more likely.
Schattschneider's (1960) conception of conflict expansion forms the basis
of our notion of institutional venue and points to the importance of image as
well. Schattschneider argued that losers in a policy debate have the motive
to change the roster of participants by appealing to those not currently in-
volved in the debate. If they can appeal to the right group of potential par-
ticipants, they may be able to change their losing position into the winning
one, as more and more people become involved in the debate on their side.
Schattschneider, however, viewed conflict as either contained to elites or
socialized to include the mass public. In our view, there are a variety of
venues to which a particular conflict may be directed, most of which would
not involve mass mobilization at all. The mass public represents but one of
a number of venues for policy conflict.
Conflict expansion to new venues can occur in three ways. The first is the
classic loser appeal strategy that Schattschneider noted. The second is action
by concerned outsiders, who may or may not be allied with losers in a policy
subsystem. Oftentimes such outsiders lack both credibility and information
to attack the existing subsystem, so that making alliances with losers from
within the smaller group can be very important to outsider strategies. Third,
decision makers from another venue can attack an existing policy arrange-
ment trying to expand their own policy jurisdictions. Congressmen, for ex-
ample, may wish to raise their visibility through such a strategy. Clearly
these three conflict expansion processes are not mutually exclusive. In fact,
alliances between all three types of conflict expanders are expected (see
Baumgartner 1987 for a similar example in a different context).
Policymakers need not employ a rational decision model or know in ad-
vance exactly how their ideas will be received in a particular institutional
venue. Rather, they may search for favorable venues through a trial-and-
error process or an evolutionary search. Those uncomfortable in the current
venue or with the current image have incentives to seek out more favorable
ones. They may search in a variety of arenas at once. Where they find initial
success, they continue to search; where their ideas are rejected, they aban-
don that effort. In this way, we need not assume that strategic actors can
predict in advance the single most favorable image or venue for their poli-
cies. Successful efforts to shift image and venue may often be the result of
evolutionary, rather than rational, search.
Any model of the policy process which seeks to explain both incremental-
ism on the one hand and rapid change on the other must appreciate the
interaction between issue assignment and political rhetoric. Where the
rhetoric begins to change, venue changes become more likely. Where venue
changes occur, rhetorical changes are facilitated. Thus, a slight change in
either can lead to rapid changes in policy outcomes. With each change in
venue comes an increased attention to a new image, leading to further
changes in venue, as more and more groups within the political system be-
come aware of the question. So the interactions of image and venue may
produce a self-reinforcing system characterized by positive feedback mecha-
nisms. Such systems can produce both long periods of no change or dramatic
reversals in outcomes in relatively short periods of time.
As an example of how image and venue changes may reinforce them-
selves, consider a case where an environmental group is continually on the
losing side of regulatory decisions made with the executive branch of the
federal government. Let us assume that they achieve some initial success by
appealing to a previously uninvolved group in Congress. Their understand-
ing of the issue, disregarded or considered to be marginal in the original
opment is more a result of conflict over problem and policy definitions than
blunt instruments of elite control. We agree with Stone. The manipulation
of images is not only one of the ways in which the powerful try to maintain
their positions but also is a potential route to political power by relatively
weak opponents to large economic interests. As we will show with the nu-
clear power industry, failure to control the images associated with a policy
can lead to loss of control over the policy itself, even when it appears to be
firmly within the institutional jurisdiction of influential groups all of whom
favor the current direction of public policy. Manipulation of image and
venue is an inherent part of the policy process understood by those on all
sides of most policy debates. Sometimes it works in favor of economic elites,
sometimes against them.
Cobb and Elder (1983, 152) describe a link between agenda entrance, by
which they mean inclusion in the list of issues that compels attention by a
governmental entity, and issue expansion, which refers to the number of
people mobilized around an issue. They see the issue expansion process as a
key element in the destruction of systems of limited participation and argue
that as a larger and larger circle of participants is mobilized, the strength of
the subsystem is likely to be weakened. Yet there is a second manner in
which issues may gain agenda entrance: venue shopping by strategically-
minded political actors. This strategy relies less on mass mobilization and
more on the dual strategy of the presentation of image and the search for a
more receptive political venue. While well-placed allies are essential in this
process, mass mobilization is not necessarily critical. The mass public rep-
resents but one of many potential venues for a policy debate, and strategic
policymakers can often be successful in breaking apart policy-making sys-
tems which go against their interests without any direct appeals to the broad
public.
Even when mass publics are involved in the issue expansion process, they
often come into the process following elite debate and then generally re-
spond to symbols generated during the elite conflict. Carmines and Stimson
(1986) show this to be the case for the important partisan issue of race rela-
tions. (Page and Shapiro 1983, have made the opposing case for the effect of
public opinion on policy.) We shall present information shortly that indicates
that major declines in public support for nuclear power occurred well after
the demise of the option as a realistic policy alternative. By the time the
conflict had been socialized to include the mass public, important policy
decisions had already been made through the manipulation of image and
venue among the institutions of national and local levels of government, far
from the glare of public attention. Reversals in public opinion played an
important role in solidifying the changes that had occurred among elites, but
they did not create them.
Finally, the process of change need not involve only governments. In a
We examine four specific predictions in the pages that follow. First, where
policy issues have been assigned to policy subsystems, increasing attention
is related to an increasingly negative policy image. This follows from at-
tempts of strategic policymakers to alter the prevailing policy settlement by
calling attention to its undersireable effects. This relation between attention
and valence is expected to hold only when opponents to the prevailing image
are seeking to alter a standing decision or the institutional locus of an issue.
The initial assignment of the issue to a venue may be associated with consid-
Media coverage of political issues has two dimensions; attention and va-
lence. Changes in the valence of issues matter little if attention is low. How-
ever, Mazur (1981) presents evidence that, at least for technical issues, any
increase in media coverage tends to cause declines in public support for
the policy (see also Freudenburg and Rosa 1984). As attention increases
(whether positive or negative), public acceptance declines. For the nuclear
industry as for other established policy subsystems in technologically com-
plex areas, the adage "no news is good news" could not ring more true.
The peaceful use of nuclear power was initiated on a wave of positive
propaganda: atoms for peace; electricity too cheap to meter; a clean, high-
tech technology; low-cost source of energy for the future. But there were
always competing images: the enormous destruction of nuclear weapons; a
society of fall-out shelters; giveaways of public technology to private busi-
ness. At the beginning of the civilian nuclear era, these negative images
were far outweighed by the positive. As time went on, the image changed,
and this degradation of image was associated with later changes in venue
access. As the venues of nuclear power policy expanded, image degradation
accelerated. Finally, the industry was in deep trouble.
Weart (1988) coded positive and negative titles listed in the Reader's
Guide to Periodical Literature for both military and civilian uses of nuclear
power, and has made his data available to us. Figure 1 shows the total num-
ber of titles concerning civilian nuclear power listed in the Reader's Guide,
thus measuring attention.3 In addition, it assesses valence by presenting the
percentage of these titles coded positive (neutral and uncodeable titles are
omitted from the calculation of percentages).
The figure shows an increase in attention to the issue of civilian nuclear
power in the late 1940s, coinciding with the passage of the McMahon Act
establishing the Atomic Energy Commission in 1946. In the early 1950s, a
second major increase in attention occurred, coinciding with major amend-
ments to the McMahon Act in 1954.4 Both of these increases in attention
were associated with positive images. This is the period of "atomsfor peace."
During the late 1950s and early to mid-1960s, attention to the issue fell.
Then, in 1968, the dynamics of the nuclear image changed. Attention began
to increase, and negative titles began to dominate. In 1968, the number of
3 Weart coded selected years from the turn of the century. Each year coded is indicated by a
point in the figure. The Reader's Guide published annual volumes from 1965 to present. Before
1965, individual volumes covered more than one year. The figure represents data by volume,
standardized by the number of years covered. For example, if a volume covered two years, then
each of the two would be assigned the same score equal to half the number of articles in the
volume.
4The number of titles in the Reader's Guide changes over the years, so there is a risk of
misinterpretation by using the raw numbers of titles on nuclear power. However, when we
express the data in figure 1 as a percentage of all titles in the Guide, the shapes of the two lines
are remarkably similar.
FIGURE 1
100% 200
150
40%.,
Total Number of
Articles Per ,*ar
(Right Scale) 50
0% I
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990
Year
negative titles exceeded the number of positive titles, for the first time in
the century. Since that year, the trend has been an increasing dominance of
negative titles over positive ones, until in the 1980s, negative titles outnum-
bered positive ones by more than 20 to 1. The opponents of nuclear power
had succeeded in convincing writers for the mass media that the future of
nuclear power was not the shining city on the hill, but death, destruction,
and debt.
So attention to nuclear power has gone through cycles. First, high positive
attention was associated with the development of the industry in the United
States, with extremely favorable institutional arrangements. Later high at-
tention came in a period of bad news for the industry. The next section
examines the link between these changes in image and the changes in venue
that are expected to correspond.
Atomic Energy Act of 1946, Congress established the Atomic Energy Com-
mission and granted it a governmental monopoly on the development of
nuclear power (Polsby 1984, 18-35). After lobbying by private utilities at
the AEC, within the executive branch and with members of the Congres-
sional Joint Commission on Atomic Energy, Congress amended the McMa-
hon Act in 1954 to provide for a private nuclear industry of which the AEC
became the facilitator and the patron. The issue had been assigned to the
private sector for decision with a small group of executive and legislative
branch officials charged with boosterism, facilitation, and almost inciden-
tally, oversight.
The initial institutional assignment of civilian nuclear power questions
could not have been more favorable to the development of the industry.
Institutions were purposefully designed to ensure control by those most
strongly interested in advancing the technology. Government agencies were
specifically organized to facilitate private development, and the nation'smost
powerful corporations pushed forwardin concert with an encouraging execu-
tive branch agency and with a special joint committee of Congress also in-
clined to give them every assistance. Campbell describes the situation as
one of differential access to decision making: "Corporate, political, and tech-
nocratic elites advocating nuclear power had privileged access to the most
insulated and centralized interiors of the policy process" (1988, 78). Nuclear
power was seen as the future guarantorof America'senergy needs, while the
negative images associated with it were pushed away from the national
agenda. The technology of destruction which had put an end to the war
would be put to use through a government-private sector partnership to put
an end to scarcity and hunger. "Atoms for peace" would produce electricity
"too cheap to meter."Journalists covering science topics played an important
role in reinforcing the positive images of the time (see Lanouette 1990).
In his excellent case study of nuclear power policy, John Campbell clearly
shows that political conflict expanded from the closed subsystem outward
as AEC technical staff began to question the agency's safety decisions. He
describes this as an internal legitimacy crisis (Campbell 1988, 51). These
scientists and safety experts began to feel that government funds were going
disproportionately toward the development of bigger and newer reactor de-
signs with insufficient attention to the safety questions for which they were
responsible (see Campbell 1988, 51 ff). Some scientists believed that the
variety of designs permitted by the AEC made safety more problematic
since each construction project was unique (Mooz 1979; Morone and Wood-
house 1989).
From the outset of the establishment of the policy subsystem, opponents
had voiced objections. First, labor unions complained about government
subsidies for private business (Morone and Woodhouse 1989, 47-50). Later
environmentalists and local activists displeased at the location of plants close
operating license hearings in 1971, but this received no support from even
the Joint Committee (Rolph 1979, 116). In 1974, Congress dismantled the
AEC, assigning its regulatory functions to the Nuclear Regulatory Commis-
sion and its development functions to the Energy Research and Develop-
ment Agency (ERDA), which later became the Department of Energy. A
m4jor reason for these changes was the low esteem of the AEC and the
entire nuclear industry in the eyes of many congressmen. In 1977, the Joint
Committee was abolished because of the general perception that the com-
mittee members were too close to the industry. A number of congressional
committees claimed responsibility for oversight. Venue shopping clearly
played an important role in this process, and its importance was understood
by those on both sides.
Opponents followed the classic pattern of expanding the conflict by alter-
ing the institutional venue. Simultaneously they worked to reformulate the
image of nuclear power from one of progress and efficiency to one of danger
and waste. Ironically, as Weart points out, much of the reason for the shifting
image of the nuclear power industry came from the almost perverse pride
that the leaders of the industry took in its early years in proclaiming that
they were going to harness the world's most dangerous technology. The in-
dustry prided itself on its preparations for worst-case scenarios, but oppo-
nents were able to make effective use of "Maximum Credible Accident" cal-
culations when it suited their strategic needs (see Weart 1988, 288ff).
Unfortunately for those in favor of the industry, public attention focused on
the seeming admission by the government and industry that these accidents
could indeed occur, rather than on the preparations being made for them,
or on how unlikely they might be.
Even though it was not clear at the time, and even though most analysts
today do not fully comprehend it, the fate of nuclear power was sealed prior
to 1974. When the industry lost control of the issue, when the venue had
been expanded by opponents to include licensing, oversight, and ratemak-
ing, the future was determined. Utilities ordered only 15 more plants after
1974. Opponents had won primarily by getting their vision of the issue
accepted and by altering the nature of the decision-making process by ex-
panding the range of participants involved. We present data in the following
sections which assess the changing nature of the nuclear power policy com-
munity in the United States. The image changes evident in Weart's data
presented earlier correspond to the emergence of nuclear power questions
in a variety of institutional arenas.
FIGURE 2
70
60
50
0o 921 It I ;I , 1 I I I
regulations per year, the agency shifted in the late 1960s toward much
greater activity. By the mid-1970s, regulatory activity as measured with this
simple indicator was much more erratic but generally at about four times
the previous level.
Corresponding to the change in the total number of regulations and
amendments are the results of an independent study which sought to classify
each new regulation in terms of the scope of its impact. This study covered
only the period of 1967-1977; fortunately this is the period during which
the regulatory environment was transformed in the United States. Bennett
and Kettler (1978) created a "weighted regulation index" that counts those
regulations with greater impact on the industry more heavily than those with
smaller impact. The weighted regulatory index grew almost geometrically
from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, from a value of 3 in 1967 to 12 in 1970,
29 in 1972, 47 in 1975, and 49 in 1977. As figure 2 indicates, the annual
output of regulations and amendments increased in a similar way at about
the same time. The two series of data combined show the changes surround-
ing the activities of the AEC/NRC as the breakup of the nuclear energy
subgovernment approached. Of course this activity has a much greater cu-
mulative effect than only annual figures suggest. A major shift in regulatory
behavior started in the late 1960s and was complete by the mid-1970s.
Other indicators also point to an increasingly tight regulatory environment
over time. The annual number of reactor inspections done by AEC/NRC staff
went from about 500 per year in the early 1970s to more than 3,000 per year
in the 1980s, according to annual reports. This dramatic shift in activity be-
gan in or around 1974, when the number of reactor inspections passed 1,000
for the first time. Inspections of fuel facilities and other nuclear sites besides
reactors under the jurisdiction of the AEC/NRC follow a similar pattern.
Finally, the percentage of NRC staff in the Inspection and Enforcement Di-
vision shows a steady increase, from 20.9% in 1975 to 32.8% in 1986. During
the early period, much of the federal government's investment in nuclear
energy was in research and other activities, but by the late 1970s the NRC
had become a watchdog agency. The mid-1970s was a period of transition.5
TABLE 1
FIGURE 3
120
100 - ------.........
80 N..u
mb.... .............. .....
.......... ...................
...... .....
................
Negative Topics, , .
....................
..................
................................................... ............. ......
...............
.......................... . .. .......... ............... ............
8 0 _.............
40 .........
. ........... . . . ..... .. . . .
.......... .-
. .. . . . . . . . ....
.
. . .. . . . .
.
. . .. .
40 , P- Number of
Positive Topics
20 X S ~ /N\ 'xj
plants. They pressed the rhetoric of public participation to force the opening
of numerous previously closed governmental processes, allowing greater and
greater intervention by opponents at all stages of the policy process (Nelkin
and Fallows 1978). Massive local protests were mounted at specific plants
(Nelkin 1971; see also Kitschelt 1986).
In California, strong environmental and consumer movements and the
availability of the initiative and referendum allowed citizens to vote on two
antinuclear propositions, one in 1972 and a second in 1976 (Kuklinski 1982).
Although these referenda failed, California environmentalists continued to
press their case at licensing hearings and rate-setting hearings before the
public service commission. Consumer advocates in many states began focus-
ing on state public utility commissions in order to force them to take a
tougher stance against the electric utility monopolies which they regulated.
They began to intervene regularly in ratemaking procedures, especially
when nuclear plants were involved, with more success in some states than
in others. As capital costs for nuclear facilities escalated during the 1970s,
nuclear opponents benefitted from public service commission rules that pro-
hibited passing on costs of facilities to ratepayers until the plants were com-
pleted. They also picked up some valuable allies in the form of manufactur-
ing corporations interested in keeping their electricity costs low. Antinuclear
activists, once a diverse coalition of environmentalists, now included Gen-
eral Motors, Dow Chemical, and other large industrial users of electricity
who knew that with each nuclear power plant granted an operating license,
state regulators would allow significant rate increases so that utilities could
recoup their enormous investments.
Expansion of the nuclear power policy community did not only occur in
national policy-making institutions. Federal and state courts became more
involved, and state and local governments were mobilized. In short, oppo-
nents were successful in seeking out not only one more favorable venue for
their views, but literally hundreds of them, breaking up the previously
tightly controlled subgovernment in the process. These changes were to
have dramatic impacts on the economic performance of those utilities oper-
ating or constructing nuclear facilities.
FIGURE 4
150 0/1
s o . . . /.
..>X,X/
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
0 I . l I
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990
Year
therefore, forced to offer higher rates on their bonds (Campbell 1988, 99).
Utilities had lost their luster to the financial community. Part of the reason
for the declining economic performance of the utilities had to do with their
heavy nuclear investments and the changing regulatory environment, as
noted earlier (Montgomery and Rose 1979; Golay 1980; Weingast 1980; Ko-
monoff 1981; Paik and Schriver 1981; see also Goodman and Wrightson
1987). The financial markets reacted to the huge cost overruns associated
with nuclear investments in a way which reinforced some of the negative
images associated with the industry, even though the business and financial
community had no particular aversion to the technology per se. Those utili-
ties most committed to nuclear power fared even worse than others during
this time.
Figure 4 compares the stock market performance of the Dow-Jones Utility
Index with an index of nuclear utility stock prices which we have created,
from 1962 to 1988. The Dow-Jones Utility Index is comprised of 15 utilities
and thus may not be fully representative of the utilities industry. A com-
parison with the more inclusive Standard and Poor'sutility index yielded no
significant differences, however. Our nuclear utility index was constructed
by averaging the stock market performances of those 36 utilities listed on
the New York Stock Exchange that rely most heavily on nuclear power for
their stocks were worth over three times as much in 1988 as in 1975, those
most heavily involved in nuclear power have made no discernible recovery.
In 1988, their stocks remained, on average, at less than one-half of their 1962
values.
Clearly, the economics of nuclear power did not drive its politics. On the
contrary, politics had an important impact on the adverse reactions of the
market. As regulatory activity increased and as the federal government jet-
tisoned its boosterism of the industry, it became clear to investors that utili-
ties operating, constructing, or planning nuclear plants could be in serious
financial trouble. The market constitutes one more element in the positive
reinforcement process. As elite understandings of nuclear power questions
were altered in the 1960s, new actors began to intervene thereby changing
the nature of the regulatory and the governmental environment for the in-
dustry making it considerably less favorable. This led to serious changes in
the financial outlook for the industry. So changes in the political environment
and in the processes and rules of policymaking eventually found their reflec-
tion in the financial markets as an image problem became a serious economic
concern. Prudent business managers began to shy away from nuclear invest-
ments, where previously the tightly controlled and supportive governmental
structure in charge of promoting the industry had made the investments so
attractive to this same group. So we see clearly the link between politics and
markets, as the markets are a part of the single process of interaction among
the multiple venues of decision making in any complex society.
TABLE 2
TRACING THE DEMISE OF A POLICY SUBSYSTEM: VENUE SUCCESSION
FOR NUCLEAR POWER
REFERENCES
Goodman, Marshall R., and Margaret T. Wrightson. 1987. Managing Regulatory Reform. New
York:Praeger.
Gormely, William T. Jr. 1983. The Politics of Public Utility Regulation. Pittsburgh, PA: Univer-
sity of Pittsburgh Press.
Griffith, Ernest. 1939. The Impasse of Democracy. New York:Harrison-Hilton Books.
Hamm, Keith. 1983. "Patterns of Influence among Committees, Agencies, and Interest
Groups." Legislative Studies Quarterly 8 (August):379-426.
Helco, Hugh. 1978. "Issue Networks in the Executive Establishment." In The New American
Political System, ed. Anthony King. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.
Inglehart, Ronald. 1984. "The Fear of Living Dangerously: Public Attitudes toward Nuclear
War." Public Opinion 7:41-44.
Jones, Bryan D., and Frank R. Baumgartner. 1989. "Changing Images and Venues of Nuclear
Power in the United States." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political
Science Association, Chicago.
Jones, Charles 0. 1975. Clean Air. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Kingdon, John W. 1984. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown.
Kitschelt, Herbert B. 1986. "Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-
Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies." British Journal of Political Science 16:57-85.
Kluklinski, James, Daniel S. Metlay, and W. D. Kay. 1982. "Citizen Knowledge and Choices
on the Complex Issue of Nuclear Energy." American Journal of Political Science 26:615-42.
Komonoff, Charles. 1981. Power Plant Cost Escalation. New York:Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Lanouette, William. 1990. "How Atomic Agency Managed the News in Early Years."The News-
letter of the National Association of Science Writers 38:1-3.
Maass, Arthur. 1951. Muddy Waters. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
March, James G., and Johan P. Olsen. 1989. Rediscovering Institutions. New York:The Free
Press.
Mazur, Allan. 1981. "Media Coverage and Public Opinion on Scientific Controversies." Journal
of Communication 106-16.
Mitchell, Robert C. 1981. "From Elite Quarrel to Mass Movement." Society: 76-84.
Montgomery, T. L., and D. J. Rose. 1979. "Some Institutional Problems of the U.S. Nuclear
Industry." Technology Review 81: 53-62.
Mooz, William E. 1979. A Second Cost Analysis of Light Water Reactor Power Plants. Santa
Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
Morone, Joseph G., and Edward J. Woodhouse. 1989. The Demise of Nuclear Energy? New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Nelkin, Dorothy. 1971. Nuclear Power and its Critics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Nelkin, Dorothy, and Susan Fallows. 1978. "The Evolution of the Nuclear Debate: The Role of
Public Participation."Annual Review of Energy 3:275-312.
Odegard, Peter H. 1928. Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Page, Benjamin, and Robert Shapiro. 1983. "Effects of Public Opinion on Policy." American
Political Science Review 77:23-43.
Paik, Soon, and William R. Schriver. 1981. "The Effect of Increased Regulation on Capital Costs
and Manual Labor Requirements of Nuclear Power Plants." The Engineering Economist
26:223-44.
Polsby, Nelson W. 1984. Policy Innovation in America: The Politics of Policy Initiation. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Rankin, William L., Stanley M. Nealey, and Barbara Desow Melber. 1984. "Overview of Na-
tional Attitudes toward Nuclear Energy: A Longitudinal Analysis." In Public Reaction to
Nuclear Power: Are there Critical Masses?, ed. William R. Freudenburg and Eugene A.
Rosa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Riker, William H. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ripley, Randall B., and Grace A. Franklin. 1990. Congress, the Bureaucracy, and Public Policy.
Chicago: The Dorsey Press.
Robyn, Dorothy. 1987. Braking the Special Interests: Trucking Deregulation and the Politics
of Policy Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rolph, Elizabeth. 1979. "Nuclear Power and Public Safety." Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Rothman, Stanley, and S. Robert Lichter. 1982. "The Nuclear Energy Debate: Scientists, the
Media, and the Public." Public Opinion 5:47-52.
Rothman, Stanley, and S. Robert Lichter. 1987. "Elite Ideology and Risk Perception in Nuclear
Energy Policy." American Political Science Review 81: 383-404.
Sabatier, Paul. 1988. "An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change and the Role of
Policy Learning." Policy Sciences 21:129-68.
Schattschneider, E. E. 1960. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston.
Stone, Deborah A. 1989. "Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas." Political Sci-
ence Quarterly 104:281-300.
Thurber, James A. 1990. "Dynamics of Policy Subsystems in American Politics." In Interest
Group Politics, 3d ed., ed. Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis. Washington DC: Con-
gressional Quarterly.
Weart, Spencer R. 1988. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
Weingast, Barry. 1980. "Congress, Regulation, and the Decline of Nuclear Power." Public
Policy 28:231-55.
Wood, B. Dan. 1988. "Principals, Bureaucrats, and Responsiveness in Clean Air Enforce-
ments." American Political Science Review 82: 213-34.