A Web of Interests: Stalemate on the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel

The United States has adopted a policy of geological disposal to resolve the problem of permanent disposition of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel (SNF), but has been unable to implement this policy. This study draws upon literature on policymaking and interest group representation to examine that inability. It develops and explores a conceptualization of policy stalemate to analyze the case.
The study finds that the United States has arrived at a stalemate over SNF disposal policy in part because of its pluralist system of interest group representation, and in part because of the nature of the problem. The case demonstrates how, in a pluralist system, the interaction of interests over a complex and difficult policy problem can result in stalemate. Few of the involved interest groups have sufficient incentives to either implement current SNF disposal policy or to revisit the policy. Barring significant change in the nature of the problem, the balance of interests, or other factors in the policy environment, the stalemate will continue.
The central question of this symposium is how institutionalized systems of interest group representation manage competing demands for environmental protection with demands for energy. In the case of SNF disposal, the United States in effect is managing these competing demands by not addressing them. SNF disposal policy does not appear to pose directly the expected tradeoff between demands for environmental protection and accessible energy, as the conflict tends to be defined primarily in environmental terms. However, the trade-off is implicit; failure to resolve the problem will eventually impact continued access to nuclear energy.     

Adapting Western Style Regional Planning to Russia: The University of Massachusetts‐Pskov Region Partnership

Reflecting on 5 years of experience in an ongoing partnership between the University of Massachusetts and the Pskov region in Russia, this paper analyses the process of introducing Western style planning in a provincial region in Russia at the post-Soviet era. After describing the region, the participants, and some changes undergoing in Russia, the key elements of the project, its accomplishments and some problems encountered are reported. The distinguishing characteristics of this project are its attempt at a unified approach that combines academic, consulting and public policy elements, and its success as a partnership in which Americans and Russians together attempt to find the best way to introduce Western style planning in a country moving from a centralized to a free market economy.     

Charity plus (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This editorial takes to task a statement on humanitarianism by Valerie Amos, UN Under‐Secretary‐General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, which seems to gloss over issues to do with staff selection and management policies, but especially the work of veteran anthropologists in the field of development and alternative perspectives on humanitarianism.     

The Role of Spatial Scale in Geomorphic Systems

Geomorphic systems are characterized by numerous, complex interrelationships between system components, and by processes and controls which may operate over different spatial scales. Factors operating at any given spatial scale can be viewed as an abstracted subset of all relationships operating at all scales. The theory that relationships which operate over spatial scales an order of magnitude different are effectively independent of each other is formally stated in terms of abstracted systems. An example is given to illustrate the use of spatial statistics to determine what constitutes a significant spatial scale difference in controls over hydraulic geometry of a desert wash.