Point Predictions and the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory: A Data Mining Approach—U.S. Nuclear Policy as Proof of Concept

In Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET), information processing under the constraints of limited attention and bounded rationality leads to stick‐slip dynamics in policy outcomes. Empirical work in this field often focuses on the macro level. Using the case of nuclear energy policy in the United States as proof of concept, we demonstrate how decisive budget changes in a specific policy subsystem can be linked to attention of Congress and the president. We utilize a mixed‐methods data‐mining approach: Maximum likelihood estimation is used to analyze the distribution of the nuclear energy RD&D budget. Then attention data of both Congress and the president are structured by means of cluster analysis and principal component analysis. Finally, these data are used in a generalized linear model to predict specific budget shifts. The article is designed as a proof of concept: In the case of nuclear energy policy, we are able to predict budget shifts without violating the assumptions of PET. More importantly: we can demonstrate that attention is not only affecting the final policy outcome but also the corridor of the possible.     

朗道团队与苏联核计划

苏联核计划档案材料解密之后,朗道团队参与苏联核计划的秘密也随之浮出水面。朗道这位物理学界泰斗带领自己的团队解决了多项科研难题,在苏联核计划实施的各个阶段发挥着不可替代的作用。利用朗道创建的公式,苏联成功分离了氘和铀-235,为核武器研发提供了裂变材料,其后朗道公式在苏联核武器研制中得到广泛使用。朗道团队创建和发展了核反应堆理论,推动了苏联工业核反应堆的建立。朗道团队完成了冲击波和爆炸波研究,提出通过爆炸压缩核装药达到超临界状态的想法和原子弹内爆原理。在朗道的领导下,其团队完成了原子弹爆炸有效因数和释能的计算工作,并在氢弹的研发工作中做出了杰出贡献。     

钚-239的生产与苏联核计划

苏联核计划中使用的核裂变材料主要有钚-239和铀-235,其中钚-239的生产率先取得成功,1949年8月29日苏联试爆的第一颗原子弹РДС-1所使用的核裂变材料便是钚-239。1949年之前,钚-239的生产具有试验性特征,1949年之后,钚-239进入了工业规模化的生产阶段。在钚-239的工业生产阶段,反应堆技术、放射化学技术和化学冶金技术都不断完善,实现了产能提高、成本下降、安全生产等目标,形成了完善的钚工业综合体,不仅为俄罗斯联邦留下了丰厚的钚产品,还为其钚-239的生产奠定了坚实基础。     

The Politics of Crisis Policymaking: Chernobyl and Swedish Nuclear Energy Policy

Public policy scholars often accentuate the key role of crises in explaining policy change; however, much empirical work still remains to be done in order to explain crisis‐induced policy outcomes. This article explores the prediction of the Advocacy Coalition Framework that stable coalitions and impediments to learning reduce the likelihood for policy change after a crisis. Strategic action is emphasized as a supplementary variable focusing on the role of political motivations in post‐crisis policymaking. Sweden's decision not to accelerate the nuclear power phaseout following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster provides a case study to assess the utility of these explanations. Findings corroborate theoretical expectations about stable minority coalitions, cast doubts over the presumed rigidity of policy core beliefs, and emphasize strategic action and cognitive heuristics as important motivations for policy choice. The article concludes by outlining three sector‐specific variables (ideological salience, level of conflict, and previous crisis experiences) that add to the explanation of crisis‐induced policy outcomes.     

‘Navigating sovereignty under a Cold War military industrial colonial complex: US military empire and Marshallese decolonization’

Abstract

As World War II unsettled the global balance of power ushering in a wave of decolonization, the postwar period also saw the expansion of US military imperialism into Micronesia. In this central Pacific region, a new colonial era began rooted in US strategic concerns and mandated under a 1947 United Nations Trusteeship Agreement. During the Cold War, the United States buttressed its nuclear arsenal by testing its deadliest weapons of mass destruction (nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile) in the Marshall Islands, residing on the eastern edge of Micronesia. This weapons testing program would inform Marshallese struggles towards self-determination, ultimately shaping the contours of Marshallese sovereignty as the region achieved formal decolonization through a Compact of Free Association in 1986.     

Can argillaceous formations isolate nuclear waste? Insights from isotopic,noble gas,and geochemical profiles

There is considerable interest in the use of thick argillaceous geologic formations to contain nuclear waste. Here, we show that diffusion can be the controlling transport process in these formations and diffusional time scales for δ¹⁸O and δ²H in water, dissolved He, and Cl transport in shale‐dominated aquitards are typically over 10⁶ years, well exceeding the regulatory requirements for isolation in most countries. Our scientific understanding of diffusive solute transport processes through argillaceous formations would benefit from the application of additional isotopic tracers (e.g., using new ⁴He sampling technology), multidimensional diffusive‐dispersive modeling of groundwater flow and diffusive‐dispersive solute transport over long geologic time scales, and an improved understanding of spatial heterogeneity as well as time‐dependent changes in the subsurface conditions and properties of argillaceous formations in response to events such as glaciation. Based on our current isotopic and geochemical understanding of transport, we argue that argillaceous formations can provide favorable long‐term conditions for isolating nuclear wastes.     

From the familiar to the extraordinary: local residents' perceptions of risk when living with nuclear power in the UK

Nearly two decades since the last nuclear power station was built and began operating in the UK, nuclear energy is firmly back on the political agenda domestically and elsewhere in the world. Yet since the 1980s, little research has investigated perceptions of nuclear power in the UK, particularly those of communities living in very close proximity to such facilities. Using biographical narrative interviews (n = 61), we explore how local residents living close to two nuclear power stations in the UK (Bradwell, Essex and Oldbury, South Gloucestershire) have come to view their local facility. We reveal how the power station is constructed through processes of familiarisation and/or the normalisation/normification of risk as part of everyday life; how this ordinariness is juxtaposed with moments of extraordinariness in which, due to direct and mediated events, the power station is reframed as a risk issue; and how risk awareness is associated with moments of anxiety which ebb and flow through our interviewees' lives. We conclude that biographical experiences dynamically unfolding through space and time can be interrupted by risk events (mediated and direct, real and symbolic, nuclear and non-nuclear) to disrupt the usually taken-for-granted ordinariness of a power station's presence in a particular locality. Our findings suggest that those involved in debate about new nuclear build must be sensitive to the heterogeneity of the extraordinary in nuclear affairs and the importance of socio-cultural histories of place.     

核武器与新中国60年发展历程

从抗日战争时期的"原子弹是纸老虎"到20世纪50年代对"蘑菇云"的追逐,中国领导人对核武器态度的变化只发生在战术方面,而战略上的积极防御以及在国家安全诉求之外对民族复兴、外交独立、国际认可和尊重、追赶先进、实现现代化等多方面的诉求,才是这一过程中不变的主旋律,同时也是中国发展核武器的根本动因。从追逐"蘑菇云"的"革命国家"到积极参与防止核扩散的负责任大国,核武器对新中国60年发展历程的政治意义大于军事意义。     

Contesting Marshall Sahlins on Kinship

In a recent two‐part article on the nature of kinship, Marshall Sahlins maintains that performative criteria for kin‐reckoning are at least as salient as procreative ones, and that, at conception, an individual is endowed with a wide circle of kin, including the ancestral dead. For both reasons, he argues, there is no warrant for granting privileged status to what anthropologists have called ‘primary’ kinship. The contentions here are that performative criteria are modeled upon procreative ones; that ties to ancestral figures are seen as antithetical to procreative ties; and that, therefore, all kinship constructs are derived from nuclear family relationships. Evidence in support of these contentions is provided from the Mae Enga, Fiji, the Trobriands, and Aboriginal Australia.     

The Making of a Non-Aligned Nuclear Power: India's Proliferation Drift, 1964–8

The article examines the strategic circumstances leading to non-aligned India's safeguard of its nuclear option during a crucial period in its proliferation trajectory, when it was one of the states closest to nuclear-weapons development, and faced US pressures to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that was being negotiated at the time. Based on Indian, US, and French primary sources, this paper demonstrates that India's regional strategic insecurities and bilateral tensions with the United States were too great for it to sign the NPT. Yet, New Delhi's capability to successfully reprocess weapons-grade plutonium permitted the developing country substantial leverage that it exploited through advancing on a slow dual-use nuclear programme.