After reading this week’s articles reflect on the different theories to understand why countries develop differently. Which theory resonates the most with you and why? Which theory seems to explain less about why countries develop differently. Compare and contrast these two theories and discuss the strengths and weakness of these two theories. Be sure to include specific quotes for the reading and provide specific examples to support your choice.
Four Theories of Public Policy Making and Fast Breeder Reactor Development
Author(s): Herbert Kitschelt
Source: International Organization , Winter, 1986, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Winter, 1986), pp. 65-
104
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706743
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 support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
, The MIT Press , Cambridge University Press and University of Wisconsin Press are
collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Organization
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706743
Four theories of public policy making and fast
breeder reactor development Herbert Kitschelt
The recent revival of the discipline of political economy challenges purely
economic explanations of economic growth, technological innovation, and
sectoral change. This approach recognizes that political actors, institutions,
and strategies to organize the economic process together shape the economic
development of industrial societies. Whereas economists have emphasized
determinants of growth such as savings and investment rates, degrees of
domestic and international competition in an industry, or the supply of labor,
the new political economists view the political definition of property rights,
the nature of state intervention in the economy, the resources of politically
mobilized groups, and political actors’ belief systems as critical determinants
of economic transformations.’ Both economists and political economists,
however, share the assumption that actors are rational; they pursue their
interests in a calculated manner within a given system of institutional
constraints.
The commitment to rational-actor models and to a structuralist analysis
of interests and institutions represents the smallest common denominator
among modern political economists. Outside this conceptual core exists a
wide variety of competing hypotheses, four of which appear in this article:
so-called sociological theories of policy making, political coalition theory,
domestic regime structure theory, and international systems theory. Although
theoretical and empirical work on these approaches has as yet been incon-
clusive, recent research points to the compatibility and complementarity of
different explanations, rather than a simple zero-sum competition between
them.2 Single-factor theories are usually not rich enough to capture the dy-
For helpful comments on a first draft I thank Joseph Grieco and Peter Lange.
1. For a sophisticated historical reconstruction of economic and political development, see
Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: Norton, 1981).
2. In this vein Peter A. Gourevitch in “The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources
of Domestic Politics,” International Organization 32 (Autumn 1978), pp. 881-91 1, links inter-
national systems and domestic coalition arguments. Several authors have attempted to combine
International Organization 40, 1, Winter 1986 0020-8183 $1.50
? 1986 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the World Peace Foundation
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
66 International Organization
namics of complex processes of industrial transformations. Even careful
research design-that is, the selection of difficult cases, and the analysis of
crucial experiments in the perspective of a specific theoretical proposition-
can rarely control all relevant intervening variables or provide sufficient data.
Rather than resignation or an indifferent endorsement of theoretical pluralism
and eclecticism, these problems should stimulate empirical investigations to
engage in more complex theoretical arguments and in a configurative analysis
of public policy making. Testing the compatibility and interdependence of
different theories prevents theoretical parsimony from leading to
oversimplification.
In this article I will provide an example of how a complex configurative
policy analysis can be constructed. The likelihood that multiple explanations
of public policy will be found relevant increases if analysts employ one or
any of the following four strategies in comparative analysis: survey a large
number of cases; compare determinants of several different policies; measure
the dependent policy variable at a high level of quantitative precision (interval
scales), or at least distinguish analytical components of public policy; compare
determinants of a specific ongoing policy using time series data.
Although I analyze a single policy-the development of fast breeder reactors
(FBRs) in France, the United States, and West Germany -I break down the
dependent policy variable into a number of analytical components. Moreover,
I examine FBR policies over time to determine whether or not the causal
structure of policy making remains the same.
Traditionally, comparative public policy studies, especially with respect
to economic and industrial policy making, have poorly defined and concep-
tualized their dependent variables.3 In the case of FBR development policy,
quantitative policy measures are difficult to construct. Instead, I distinguish
among four analytical aspects of policy making:
1.The social groups that mobilize around a public policy. Here I am
looking for an explanation of the structural position of actors in a pol-
icy arena and the relevance actors attribute to a policy issue vis-a-vis
their self-definitions of “interests.”
domestic structure and political coalition theories; see, for example, Peter J. Katzenstein, “Con-
clusion: Domestic Structures and Strategies of Foreign Economic Policy,” in Katzenstein, ed.,
Between Power and Plenty (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978); Francis G. Castles,
ed., The Impact of Parties (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982); John Zysman, Government, Markets,
and Growth (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Peter A. Hall, “Patterns of Economic
Policy: An Organizational Approach,” in Stephen Bormstein, David Held, and Joel Krieger,
eds., The State in Capitalist Europe (London: Allen & Unwin, 1984).
3. Cf., as a good critique, George D. Greenberg, Jeffrey A. Miller, Lawrence R. Mohr, and
Bruce C. Vladeck, “Developing Public Policy Theory: Perspectives from Empirical Research,”
American Political Science Review 71 (December 1977), pp. 1532-43. Studies of economic
policy making often do not clearly distinguish output variables such as tax policies and welfare
expenditures from policy outcome variables such as employment, inflation, and economic growth.
The problem can be seen in Manfred Schmidt, Wohlfahrtsstaatliche Politik unter bufrgerlichen
und sozialdemokratischen Regierungen (Frankfurt: Campus, 1982), pp. 121-23.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 67
2.The specific institutional arenas of political decision making. Here I
focus on the organizational rules of selectivity which facilitate or
impede the access of actors to a specific arena. It is distinguished
from the broad political regime and opportunity structure in a coun-
try which features “policy styles” and institutions that remain similar
across policy arenas. (I will elaborate this point below.)
3.The decision-making process. In the case of FBR policy a number of
subgroups are closely enough meshed to merit treatment as a single
complex of variables: the use of resources and the coalitions of actors
preferring specific policy options; the choice of policy instruments to
pursue an objective-public incentives, regulation, state investment,
and so on; the extent to which these instruments are applied. The
second and third subgroups are aspects of policy “outputs.”
4.The economic, social, and political impacts of policy, that is, its “out-
comes.” Outcomes are determined by the effectiveness and the effi-
ciency with which certain results are brought about, the unintended
side effects of a policy, and the legitimacy that policies enjoy.
A public policy, then, is a cluster of actors, institutions, decision-making
processes, and outcomes. Obviously, a causal relationship exists among the
four components of policy making. The interplay among actors, decision-
making processes, and outputs logically precedes the outcome. But the precise
nature of the relationship may well be contingent upon broader constraints
and inducements to policy formation. For FBR development in France, West
Germany, and the United States, political actors and policy arenas do not
directly covary with decision-making processes and policy outcomes. Sim-
ilarly, in FBR policies in the 1970s, although actors are similar across coun-
tries, policy arenas, processes, and outcomes differ.
Unfortunately, much of the empirical policy literature focuses on just one
component of policy making-budget allocations, or measures such as in-
flation, economic growth, social unrest, for example-without reconstructing
the complexities of policy formation. This narrow focus promotes single-
factor explanations.
In addition, time and timing in the ongoing (re)production and transfor-
mation of social systems also have received little attention.4 Most theories
treat time as a continuous, linear variable. It is then possible to look at the
relative timing of a country’s development within the context of international
systems. Within countries, domestic structure theories point to the relative
inertia of institutions; hence, the past predicts future policies most successfully.
But within both approaches, change in public policy, and the role of time
and timing for public policy, are explained in terms of invariant causal con-
4. In social theory this issue has been critically analyzed by Anthony Giddens, Central Problems
in Social Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), especially pp. 202-4.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
68 International Organization
nections between variables. Relations between variables are expected to re-
main stable over time and be applicable to a broad range of contexts. This
is logically and theoretically assumed when policy analysts treat cross-sectional
comparisons of public policies as if they revealed longitudinal patterns of
policy formation. Contrary to this assumption and inference, causal rela-
tionships in policy making may themselves change over time. Time, timing,
and contextual boundary conditions of public policy making may limit the
generality of theories about policy formation much more than the nomological
version of policy theory leads us to believe. If theoretical propositions about
policy making are only valid in very limited contexts, cross-sectional and
longitudinal analysis can no longer be treated as equivalent. Conversely, we
can imagine that time and timing can change the nature of causal relationships
that are involved in public policy making. We may also have to assign a
time index to theoretical propositions about policy formation to account for
rupture. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of public policy may then
single out different determinants of public policy.5
It is possible to link theory and empirical investigation of public policy
without falling into the traps of reductionism, eclecticism, or linear time
analysis. Analysis of the development of a new and extremely sophisticated,
research-intensive energy technology reveals that the theoretical arguments
which provide the most powerful explanations of the four components of
policy making will differ for a given period. Whereas sociological policy
theories and coalition theories describe FBR policy from the mid- 1960s until
the economic and political watershed of 1973-74 in the three countries I
compare here, domestic regime structure and international systems theory
provide the stronger explanation for the period after 1974.
The fast breeder reactor provoked intense political controversy in the
1970s. As a result, the case is methodologically relevant because it dem-
onstrates the significance of timing. The energy crisis of the early 1970s and
the gradual politicization of energy issues by environmental movements in-
troduced new “intervening” variables into FBR policy arenas. The impact
of these variables on public policy in the three countries differed considerably.
Among France, West Germany, and the United States, the trajectory of FBR
policy, shaped by the intervening variables, moved from greater similarity
in the 1960s to greater dissimilarity in the 1970s and early 1980s. An em-
pirically exhaustive treatment of FBR policy within the confines of this article
5. Only a few authors have conceptualized a historically changing structure of public policy
making. See, for example, Martin 0. Heisler and B. Guy Peters, “Comparing Social Policy
across Levels of Government, Countries, and Time: Belgium and Sweden since 1870,” in
Douglas Ashford, ed., Comparing Public Policies (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1978); Peter Flora and
Jens Alber, “Modernization, Democratization, and the Development of Welfare States in Western
Europe,” in Flora and Arnold Heidenheimer, eds., The Development of Welfare States in Europe
and America (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1981); and Manfred G. Schmidt, “The Role of
Parties in Shaping Macro-Economic Policy,” in Castles, Impact of Parties.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 69
is not possible.6 Instead, I use the empirical case to make a point about the
methodology and theory of comparative policy analysis rather than to prove
each empirical assertion about FBR policy.
1. Determinants of public policy making
The four strands of public policy theory I review briefly do not exhaust the
range of explanatory options but define variables that are especially relevant
in “most similar systems” comparisons, such as between advanced capitalist
democracies that share the same level of economic development, competitive
party systems, and similar structures of consciousness and culture.
Sociological policy theory
The first explanatory approach argues that the nature of policy issues in
a societal context determines the nature of political actors, decision-making
structures and processes, and policy outcomes. In similar societies, we expect
to find similar policies toward the same issues across political systems, varied
policies across issues within the same system.
Neo-Marxist public policy analysis assumes that the structures of power
and the interests in the economic system determine the capacity of political
groups to organize the shape of political regimes and arenas, and, finally, of
policy outcomes. Neo-Marxists emphasize differences in policy formation
between “state functions” such as the provision of industrial infrastructure
or social policies.7 Different styles of rationality emerge in political admin-
istrations, depending on the policy arena,8 and different areas of state activity
correlate with different organizational structures of policy making.9 The
structure and dynamics of state policies thus vary over time and across policy
arenas, for example, between repressive, economic, and ideological policy
concerns’0, or between production and circulation issues.”I
These theories all rely on an overly simplistic image of social structure
6. For a closer investigation of FBR policies in the context of the overall energy policies of
the three countries, see Herbert Kitschelt, Politik und Energie (Frankfurt: Campus, 1983), chaps.
3-5.
7. See James O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (New York: St. Martin’s, 1973); Claus
Offe, ” ‘Krisen des Krisenmanagements’: Elemente einer politischen Krisentheorie,” in Martin
Janicke, ed., Herrschaft und Krise (Opladen: Westdeutscher, 1973).
8. See Claus Offe, “Rationalitaitskriterien und Funktionsprobleme politisch-administrativen
Handelns,” Leviathan 2, 3 (1974), pp. 333-45.
9. Linking Marxist political theory to organization theory is Goran Therborn, What Does the
Ruling Class Do When It Rules? (London: NLB, 1978).
10. Compare Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes (London: NLB, 1973),
and Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London: NLB, 1975).
11. See Gosta Esping-Anderson, Roger Friedland, and Erik Olin Wright, “Modes of Class
Struggle and the Capitalist State,” Kapitalistate 4/5 (1976), pp. 186-220.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
70 International Organization
which takes economic class into account but treats sectoral, territorial, and
cultural differences as politically insignificant. Consequently, policy analyses
often resort to ad hoc categories such as class factions, societal categories or
nonclass actors, and multiclass actors in empirical investigations. Moreover,
because actors do not always readily define their interests in class terms,
policy structures, processes, and outcomes cannot be directly deduced from
a political-economic class analysis.
A second version of policy theory shares with neo-Marxism the assumption
that determinate societal “interests” shape the processes and outcomes of
policy formation, but rejects class analysis as the sole foundation of such
interests in favor of a more flexible, inductive approach that links the actors’
perception of the costs and benefits of policy options to the nature of a given
policy process. In this vein, James Q. Wilson proposes that political groups
will organize and mobilize more or less vigorously depending on the perceived
costs or benefits of a policy.’2 Accordingly, governments can easily adopt
policies with concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, but it is almost im-
possible for them to act on policy issues with the reverse configuration.
Policies with both distributed costs and benefits can easily be institutionalized,
whereas policies with highly concentrated costs and benefits lead to protracted
and intense conflicts with the affected actors.
Although Wilson avoids economic determinism, his approach raises some
questions. Are the actors’ definitions of costs and benefits grounded in and
explainable in terms of the social structures that generate the decision-making
problems? Or, are the perceptions themselves the final anchor of the theory?
The first alternative leads to a historically and structurally refined macro-
sociological theory. By implicitly choosing the second alternative-a sub-
jective, actor-oriented definition of interests and stakes-Wilson risks
depriving the theory of content. Circular reasoning and ad hoc assumptions
can render the theory tautological by attributing the perceptions of costs and
benefits to actors after the fact, based on observed patterns of policy making.
Similar questions exist with respect to Theodore Lowi’s well-known policy
theory of public policy making, which distinguishes four types of political
arenas.’3 In more recent work, Lowi rejects both a sociological-structural
and a subjectivist definition of policy issues. Instead, he adopts a statist
perspective, treating the formal, legal provisions of enacted policies as a
“formal classification of the functions of the state” and of the intentions of
the rulers.’4 A semantic analysis of laws then generates predictions about
policy processes that are associated with specific legal patterns.
12. James Q. Wilson, Political Organization (New York: Basic, 1979), chap. 16.
13. Theodore Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory,”
World Politics 16 (July 1964), pp. 677-715, and Lowi, “Four Systems of Policy Politics and
Choice,” Public Administration Review 32 (July-August 1972), pp. 298-310.
14. See Theodore Lowi, “The State in Politics: An Inquiry into the Relation between Policy
and Administration” (ms., Cornell University, 1982), p. 1 1. In this more recent formulation,
Lowi’s approach is no longer far removed from another statist policy theory that uses properties
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 71
Correlations between semantic structures of law and policy formation,
though interesting, fall short of the expectations Lowi’s original formulation
raises. The statist formulation cannot explain why new policy issues that are
not yet legally codified produce certain patterns of policy formation.’5 More-
over, other than by reference to the rulers’ volitions, the statist approach
cannot explain systematic changes of legal codifications of a policy issue over
time. Lowi’s approach disconnects the link between social structure and
policy formation. The operational content and the impact of policy on politics
and society are, as Lowi himself confirms,’6 irrelevant for his approach.
Short of a statist or a subjectivist approach to policy theory,’7 I see only
two avenues to a policy theory that links social structure to politics and
avoids a reductionist conceptualization. An inductive approach can always
test the hypothesis that, within structurally similar societies, specific policy
issues are associated with similar patterns of policy making and cost-benefit
perceptions by actors. Assuming this hypothesis to be true, one can work
backwards to reconstruct the underlying dynamics of interest formation in
a society. Second, we can deductively explain the actors’ perception of costs
and benefits in a given social structure and make predictions about policy
patterns. Although a substantive analysis of societal cleavages-of the emer-
gence of preferences or values and of changes in cognitive and normative
orientations-requires a more far-ranging macrosociological foundation than
space allows, I will propose three formal hypotheses about the logic of interest
mobilization in modern capitalist societies which political-economic theories
of collective action and resource mobilization elaborate, and which empirical
studies confirm: the magnitude and distribution of material gains or losses
through a policy decision determines the level and aggregation of political
mobilization in conflicting and coalescing groups; actors discount the future,
hence they will mobilize more vigorously in response to policies with short-
term impacts than those with long-term impacts; within this logic of social
mobilization of interests, Wilson’s hypotheses about the ease of policy in-
novation, institutionalization, and conflict aggregation are valid.
Domestic regime theory
A second theory of policy formation directly opposes issue-based and
sociologically based explanations, and argues that policy patterns within
of decision processes to predict the nature of political actors, conflicts, and outcomes: Jiirg
Steiner, “Decision Process and Policy Outcome: An Attempt to Conceptualize the Problem at
the Cross-National Level,” European Journal of Political Research 11 (September 1983), pp.
309-18.
15. In a sense Lowi has thus confirmed the criticism made by discussants of his earlier work
that-contrary to the statement “policy determines politics-the “policy type is rather an ex-
planandum than an explanans of public policy.” See Greenberg et al., “Developing Public Policy
Theory,” p. 1542.
16. Lowi, “The State in Politics,” p. 1 1.
17. This subjectivist turn has been advocated by Peter Steinberger, “Typologies of Public
Policy: Meaning Construction and the Policy Process,” Social Science Quarterly 61 (September
1980), pp. 185-97.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
72 International Organization
countries across policy arenas are more similar than those across countries
within policy arenas.”8 Building on the comparative study of political insti-
tutions, political economists and policy analysts have updated this approach.
In the most general sense, domestic regime and opportunity structures of
politics are expected to shape the participation, organization, and processes
in all policy arenas of a country. The specific national “policy styles” that
emerge are based on complex institutional patterns that govern entire political
systems.’9 Such patterns are the principles, norms, rules, and decision-making
procedures that have been firmly institutionalized over time and that survive
fluctuations of power and coalitions among political actors in a country.20
These domestic regimes are thus relatively impervious to sudden changes
in the domestic balance of power. Regime theories explain new policy pro-
cesses and outcomes, if these can be predicted on the basis of knowledge
about recurring patterns of policy making which are typical across policy
arenas within a country.
Political economists distinguish two not always complementary theories
of domestic political structure. One focuses on the interaction between state
and society, specifically, political articulation and interest aggregation. It
distinguishes pluralist patterns of interest intermediation in which multiple,
overlapping, decentralized interest groups that arise spontaneously vie for
the attention of policy makers, from a neocorporatist pattern of more orderly,
sectorally monopolistic, and comprehensive interest groups that work in
policy making through firmly established channels of communication; are
represented equally in decision procedures; and are attributed a semiofficial
participation status by the government in policy formation.2′ In contrast to
corporatist systems, pluralist systems tend to permit a broader representation
of newly mobilized political actors with innovative political claims.
The other domestic regime theory is concerned with the state’s capacity
to impose policies and implement them consistently. It highlights variables
such as the territorial and functional centralization of the executive branch,
the domination of the executive over the legislature, the control of material
and informational resources by the state, and the ability of policy instruments
18. This argument is developed in Douglas E. Ashford, “The Structural Analysis of Policy
or Institutions Really Do Matter,” in Ashford, Comparing Public Policies.
19. The analysis of national policy styles is attempted in Jeremy Richardson, ed., Policy Styles
in Western Europe (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982).
20. The definition of domestic structures and international regime structures rests on similar
methodological and conceptual choices. For a definition of international regimes along lines
similar to the definition of domestic structures see Stephen D. Krasner, “Structural Causes and
Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables,” International Organization 36 (Spring
1982), pp. 185-205.
21. For the growing literature on state-society relations in capitalist democracies, see Suzanne
Berger, ed., Organizing Interests in Western Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1981), and Gerhard Lehmbruch and Philippe Schmitter, eds., Patterns of Corporatist Policy-
Making (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 73
to induce change in civil society.22 Especially in “strong” states, interest
intermediation between state and society may not be confined to pluralist
and corporatist options. Rather, states may selectively recognize only some
mobilized interests concerned with a policy issue. Segmented policy patterns
result, in which a limited range of compatible interests is co-opted into the
policy process. States may even exclude or subordinate interest groups al-
together and develop policies in a statist fashion.
Domestic structure theories suggest that similar policy problems will gen-
erate different groups of actors and levels of mobilization, structures of policy
arenas, decision-making processes, and policy outcomes contingent upon the
predominant type of politics in a country (pluralist, corporatist, segmented,
or statist) which expresses institutional patterns of interest intermediation
and state strength.23
Coalition theories
Both sociological policy and domestic regime hypotheses are deterministic
in that they seek policy explanations that ignore the actors’ capacities and
volitions. In contrast, coalition theories assert the significance of conscious
choices by actors and groups that have common and identifiable goals and
purposes.24 In this view, policies emerge from the formation of winning
coalitions among mobilized groups. We expect coalitions that unite actors
with similar resources and interests to develop similar policies. Conversely,
differences in policy result from differences in coalitions. Groups will enter
into coalitions according to their interests, whether defined in economic and
class terms (income, market share, economic hegemony) or by sectoral, re-
gional, and cultural criteria.
Whereas sociological policy theories often draw from structural Marxism,
certain coalition theories approach a voluntaristic Marxist theory of political
power.25 Similarly, regime theories see policy as institutionally determined,
22. See for instance Stephen Krasner, Defending the National Interest (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1978), chap. 3. A combination of interest intermediation and state capacities
is attempted in Katzenstein, “Conclusion: Domestic Structures.”
23. Criticisms of this perspective have been advanced from other public policy theories. For
issue-based approaches see Steiner, “Decision Process and Policy Outcome,” pp. 310-1 1, and
Zysman, Governments, Markets and Growth, p. 297. From the perspective of international
systems and political coalition theories, see Gourevitch, “Second Image Reversed,” p. 301, and
Zysman, Governments, Markets and Growth, pp. 347-49.
24. Coalition theories are developed in Peter A. Gourevitch, “International Trade, Domestic
Coalitions, and Liberty: Comparative Responses to the Great Depression of 1873-1896,” Journal
of Interdisciplinary History 8 (August 1977), pp. 281-313, and Gourevitch, “Breaking with
Orthodoxy: The Politics of Economic Policy Responses to the Depression of the 1930s,” Inter-
national Organization 38 (Winter 1984), pp. 95-129; and Gbsta Esping-Anderson and Roger
Friedland, “Class Coalitions in the Making of West European Economies,” Political Power and
Social Theory 3 (1982), pp. 1-50.
25. In this vein coalition theories have often blended a Marxist, economy-based conception
of politics with a pluralist, group-based vision of the political process. Recent reformulations
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
74 International Organization
while coalition theories emphasize the multiple opportunities for group co-
alitions to influence public policy. The image of policy making espoused in
coalition theory underlies those comparative public policy analyses that have
found political party strength and control of government to be key deter-
minants of public policy.26 While left-wing parties represent the interests of
the working class, right-wing parties are the political agents of the bourgeoisie.
Starting from this simple key proposition, coalition theory analyzes public
policies according to the relative strength, durability, unity, and success at
forming coalitions of each of the principal blocs. We therefore expect policies
to vary across countries and over time within countries, depending on party
strength and control of the government.
Coalition theories investigate three factors as determinants of public policy:
the strength or weakness of identifiable, mobilized groups in society; the
interests of these groups; and their actual capacities and skills to enter into
coalitions. All too often, however, actual applications of coalition theory
identify groups and group preferences in terms of the same structural bases
of power and interest in society that sociological policy theories, especially
of the Marxist variety, typically employ. Thus coalition theories frequently
blur their distinctiveness from structural analysis.
International systems theories
Whereas the previous theories are concerned with domestic determinants
of policy, an alternative exists that considers countries only as elements of
an international system. Accordingly, the international system of states shapes
the internal politics in each of its elements.27 Dominant interests and possible
courses of public policy result from each country’s structural location in the
international system. Like economic theory, this approach makes certain
simplifying assumptions in order to explain system-level processes and cor-
responding domestic policies: countries or states as the elements of the inter-
national system can be treated as actors, that is, as entities to whom volitions
can be attributed; states are self-interested and seek military and economic
power in absolute as well as relative terms within the system; states follow
of pluralism by Dahl and Lindblom have come rather close to a similar conceptualization of
politics in capitalist democracies. For a critique see John F. Manley, “Neo-Pluralism: A Class
Analysis of Pluralism I and Pluralism II,” American Political Science Review 77 (June 1983),
pp. 368-83.
26. See, for example, Francis G. Castles, The Social Democratic Image of Society (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); David R. Cameron, “The Expansion of the Public Economy:
A Comparative Analysis,” American Political Science Review 72 (December 1978), pp. 1243-62;
and Douglas A. Hibbs, “Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy,” American Political Science
Review 71 (December 1977), pp. 1467-87.
27. See Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,
1979), and, critically, Robert 0. Keohane, “Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and
Beyond,” in Ada Finifter, ed., Political Science: The State of the Discipline (Washington, D.C.:
APSA, 1983).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 75
optimal (or at least satisfycing) strategies in pursuit of their objectives and
order their objectives consistently to allow for rational action. The theory
proposes that international systems tend toward a fairly stable balance of
power. Actors with similar positions in an international system of power,
dependence, and interdependence select similar strategies, while actors with
different positions pursue different strategies. This framework yields several
specific hypotheses, two of which relate to international security concerns.
First, where several actors share a collective good, providing common security
through cooperation, and where the actors are of unequal size and weight
so as to benefit unequally from the collective good, the largest and most
important actor(s) will have to shoulder a disproportionate burden.28 A second
security-related hypothesis predicts that countries will mobilize their domestic
power resources more vigorously and exhibit less domestic conflict in public
policy making as their sensitivity and vulnerability to foreign threats and
control of critical resources increases.
This logic has also been applied to the economic dimension of international
politics.29 The relative position of a country in the international political
economy may determine its approach toward economic modernization.
Latecomers in industrial development will seek to overcome their disad-
vantage by means of vigorous state intervention in and regulation of economic
activities. More ambitious theories claim a connection between the timing
and stage of industrialization, the relative position of a country in the world
economy, and the form of the political regime itself.30 (The mirror image of
states rising in the shadow of hegemonic powers is the relative decline of
economic and political leaders: their efforts to modernize the economy wane,
they become leaders of financial rather than industrial world centers, and
they engage increasingly in foreign economic investment.) Entrepreneurs can
take advantage of relative-factor prices in less developed countries, because
military hegemony secures property rights on a global scale.3′
Debate continues over the limitations and problems of neorealist inter-
national systems theory. In passing, the issues include the difficulty of at-
tributing interests to collectivities such as states;32 the historically recent
28. In the limitational case that a subset of actors constitutes a “privileged group,” whose
benefits from supplying the collective good are higher than its goods, this privileged group will
supply the entire collective good. See Russell Hardin, Collective Action (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1982).
29. In this sense the openness of economies to world markets has been suggested as a constraint
on domestic policy making. For example, see Cameron, “Expansion of the Public Economy.”
30. See James R. Kurth, “Industrial Change and Political Change: A European Perspective,”
in David Collier, ed., The NewAuthoritarianism in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1979).
31. See Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation (New York: Basic,
1975).
32. For debate on this point see Krasner, Defending the National Interest, pp. 35-43, and,
critically, Keohane, “Theory of World Politics,” p. 521.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
76 International Organization
TABLE 1. A preliminary hypothesis about the relation between explanatory
theories and aspects of public policy
Sociological Political Political International
policy regime coalition systems
theory theory theory theory
Policy actors X – –
Policy structure – X
Policy process – – X
Policy outcomes – – – X
territorial differentiation of the international system into states,33 and the
possibility it will give way to functionally differentiated but territorially over-
lapping units;34 and, the applicability of the microeconomic paradigm, that
is, to what extent we can disassociate “unit level,” domestic and international,
and “system-level” determinants of policy.
Predictions about the shape of public policy based on the four theoretical
traditions presented here vary widely. Sociological policy theories see similar
issues associated with similar policy patterns, regardless of how the overall
political institutions or the domestic and international distribution of resources
and skills vary across countries. Domestic regime theories anticipate a cor-
relation of any particular public policy in a country with the policy style that
prevails in that country. Coalition theories emphasize the skills and resources
of actors, as against issue and regime structures, and, therefore, expect similar
policies only where similar coalitions prevail. International systems theories
apply when the location of states in international systems predicts similarities
and differences of policy making among them.
A simple way to connect the four theories of policy making and the four
components of public policy patterns would be to propose a specific affinity
to one aspect of public policy for each theory. Sociological policy theories
seem to explain the constitution of interests and the mobilization of actors;
regime theories explain the structure of specific policy arenas; coalition theories
examine the process of policy formation; and international systems theory
sheds light on the realization of objectives, as facilitated and constrained by
the location of state actors in their international environment. (See Table 1.)
Relating theories to aspects of policy making according to this model is
for the heuristic purpose of presentation only. The case of FBR policy reveals
that this model is too simplistic to reflect the relationship between deter-
33. For a historical critique of Waltz’s theory see John Gerard Ruggie, “Continuity and
Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis,” World Politics 35 (January
1983), pp. 261-85.
34. Efforts to test the relative explanatory power of “realist” and “complex interdependence”
views of international politics can be found in Robert 0. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power
and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 77
minants and attributes of policy making. In fact, the policy literature realizes
the need for more complex models, but more progress has been made by
combining explanatory variables than with respect to a sophisticated con-
ceptualization of policy itself.35
2. Fast breeder reactor policy in the 1960s and early 1970s
Compared to conventional commercial converter reactors (such as the light-
water reactor, the Canadian heavy-water reactor, or the gas-cooled reactor),
the FBR has the potential of using uranium resources up to sixty times more
efficiently. Unlike converter reactors, the FBR has no moderator in its core
to slow the flow of neutrons. Therefore, “fast” neutrons convert nonfissile
uranium 238 into fissile plutonium isotopes at a much higher rate than occurs
in other reactors. As long as enough “fertile” uranium 238 is present, the
FBR can “breed” more fissile material than it consumes. Bred plutonium
isotopes are extracted from the irradiated fuel elements through reprocessing
technologies. Next, they are refabricated as plutonium oxide fuel elements.
Finally, they become the fissile inventory of FBRs destined to convert more
fertile material into fissile isotopes, while producing heat that is employed
to generate electricity. Solutions to the problems posed by the FBR and its
fuel cycle have depended on very expensive long-term research and devel-
opment programs.
Sociological policy theory and FBR development
The sets of political actors in FBR policy, and certain structural, processual,
and outcome aspects of FBR policy making were quite similar in France,
the United States, and West Germany until the early 1970s. Actors who
35. This limitation applies to most of the literature referred to in fn. 2. It is also highlighted
by Robert Alford’s seminal “Paradigms of State and Civil Society Relations,” in Leon N.
Lindberg, Robert R. Alford, Colin Crouch, and Claus Offe, Stress and Contradiction in Modern
Capitalism (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1975). First, Alford’s recommendation to use
class, elite, and pluralist arguments in a layered analysis of policy making omits “institutionalist”
approaches (regime theory), while the methodological similarity of elite and pluralist analysis
may warrant treating them both as variations of coalition theory. Second, his essay sheds little
light on the conceptualization of policy itself. For a sophisticated empirical application of Alford’s
framework see J. Allen Whitt, “Toward A Class-Dialectical Model of Power. An Empirical
Assessment of Three Competing Models of Political Power,” American Sociological Review 44
(February 1979), pp. 81-99. Given that Whitt studies referenda decisions about public trans-
portation projects in just one setting, California, structural-institutional impacts on policy making
cannot be analyzed well. Moreover, the analysis tends to focus on groups and decisional outcomes
while neglecting an explanation for the shaping of the policy arenas or the choice of policy
instruments. This is unfortunate, because the conditions that lead to the choice of the policy
instruments, e.g., the financing schemes for public rail systems, could be a serious contender
to his own preferred explanation of referenda outcomes, the mobilization of class (factions)-
unless he were prepared to argue that these choices merely reflected class interests.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
78 International Organization
expected short-term, concentrated advantages from a vigorous development
policy resided in the scientific communities of all three countries. The eventual
societal payoff (a new energy conversion system) legitimized the construction
of basic research facilities. The second immediate constituency of FBR de-
velopment included the engineering and electromechanical industries that
were already developing first-generation nuclear reactors in the three countries.
Given the technological risks, the uncertain economics, and the lack of an
accepted institutional framework within which to use highly sensitive fission
technologies, private industry was very reluctant to invest significantly in
the new technology.36 Both science and industry looked to the state for help.
Until the early 1 970s, only the direct economic beneficiaries of FBR research
(scientists, nuclear industry, associated government agencies, and regional
governments where large research facilities were located) were mobilized and
enthusiastic about the FBR. The national governments of the three countries
gave little priority to the FBR effort. Even within the U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC), the West German Ministry of Scientific Research (Bun-
desministerium fir Wissenschaftliche Forschung), and the French Com-
missariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA), other energy projects received greater
attention until the mid-1960s or later. The FBR did not offer governments
an opportunity to mobilize broad constituencies because it lacked an im-
mediate or foreseeable impact.
As a consequence, FBR funding remained at retrospectively modest levels
in all three countries throughout the 1960s. In the United States, the re-
sponsible AEC division could only overcome federal resistance to funding
a very large FBR effort, when, in 1971, the United States became a net
importer of energy. The Nixon administration then reluctantly agreed to
elevate the FBR to a high-priority program.37 Similarly, in West Germany,
the FBR remained one among several reactor designs pursued throughout
the 1960s.38 In France, the FBR became vital for the CEA only in 1969,
when the development and commercialization of its converter reactor line,
36. The market failure argument for government intervention in FBR policy has been challenged
by Otto Keck, Policy-Making in a Nuclear Program. The Case of the West German Fast Breeder
Reactor (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1981), chap. 1. Keck points to large private in-
vestment efforts, for example in the computer industry, but he overlooks the fact that the
breeder reactor is only one part of an extremely complex nuclear fuel cycle. Moreover, the
institutional uncertainties of breeder development, due to its military sensitivity as well as its
extraordinary hazard potential, are unmatched in the history of industrial innovation.
37. For budget data see Brian Chow, The Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor: An Economic
Analysis (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1975), p. 13. In the 1960s the
LMFBR budget grew mostly at the expense of other advanced reactor technologies. Only between
1970 and 1976 did annual budget allocations for the LMFBR skyrocket, from about $100
million to about $650 million.
38. The spreading of West German development funds over several reactor lines is documented
by Keck, Policy-Making in a Nuclear Program, p. 73.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 79
the gas-cooled reactor, was terminated, leaving the agency in need of a new
priority.39
Electric utility companies, like state agencies, exhibited only very limited
enthusiasm for the FBR. In none of the three countries did utilities perceive
either an immediate need for vigorous development efforts or an economic
rationale for participating in the costs of FBR demonstration plants. The
political logic behind the one apparent exception to this rule, the effort of
American utilities and nuclear industries to build the 1 00-megawatt (electric)
FERMI-reactor near Detroit, had little to do with FBR technology per se.
Begun in the mid-1950s at the height of the debate about private versus
public organization of electric utilities, the project was intended to demonstrate
private industry’s willingness to develop nuclear power in a private framework
and to prevent socialization of the utility sector.40 The project failed for
technical reasons, and private industry developed a cautious research strategy
for the FBR as a result.
Other potential constituencies and crucial participants of nuclear policy
did not mobilize around the FBR issue until the 1970s. Military and foreign
policy concerns played a negligible role until 1974. Both the United States
and France already controlled other technologies that supplied plutonium
in sufficient quantities for their military programs. And in West Germany,
the breeder reactor project surfaced only when a nuclear rearmament had
been ruled out.41 Throughout the early period of FBR development, consumer
and environmental groups remained almost entirely inactive, because the
FBR was a remote, hypothetical technology. The only exception was the
conflict about the FERMI-reactor between its builders and the United Auto
Workers of America.42
In all three countries, the distribution of players around FBR development
directly corresponded to structural similarities of the FBR policy arenas.
Only players with technical expertise and immediate institutional interests
in technology development had access to policy arenas. Structurally, the
arenas were far removed from the main coercive and economic organizations
of the state; they were not clearly integrated into a centralized, hierarchical
chain of command; and they relied on the voluntary participation of essentially
39. For the controversy about the end of the French gas-cooled reactor see Jean-Marie Colon,
Le nucleaire sans les francais. Qui decide? Qui profite? (Paris: Maspero, 1977), and Irwin C.
Bupp and Jean-Claude Derian, Light Water: How the Nuclear Dream Dissolved (New York:
Basic, 1978), p. 62.
40. The public vs. private power debate is discussed in Aaron Wildavsky, Dixon- Yates: A
Study in Power Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), and Harold P. Green and
Alan Rosenthal, Government of the Atom (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963).
41. To keep military options open, West Germany might have favored the heavy-water reactor
technology during the 1950s. See Joachim Radkau, “National politische Dimensionen der
Schwerwasser-Reaktorlinie in den Anfangen der bundesdeutschen Kemenergieentwicklung,”
Technikgeschichte 45 (Autumn 1978), pp. 229-56.
42. The environmental conflict about the FERMI-reactor is discussed in John G. Fuller, We
Almost Lost Detroit (New York: Random, 1975).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
80 International Organization
autonomous organizations, collectivities, and quasi-non-governmental cor-
porate bodies. The arenas constituted segmented subgovernments, which
were exposed to very few public pressures to legitimate their activities and
decisions.
Funding of development projects proceeded according to the incremental
and distributive logic of positive-sum games in which overall spending levels
remained sufficiently low to maintain a correspondingly low political profile.
Simultaneously, the FBR programs of all three countries employed similar
policy instruments, such as publicly financing research facilities and subsi-
dizing industrial research. These many similarities between the FBR policies
in the three countries support sociological policy theory. Nevertheless, FBR
policies were associated with significantly different coalitions among the mo-
bilized actors, substantive research strategies, and policy outcomes in each
country.
With respect to policy outcomes, countries made varying progress in their
programs. But all actors shared the same key rationality and performance
standards for FBR development. In addition to emphasis on technical progress
of development efforts, the future economic need and viability of FBRs were
stressed. In all three countries, the reactor proponents prepared elaborate
cost-benefit analyses to argue their case.43 No consideration, however, was
given .to the social acceptability and institutional implications of FBRs and
their associated fuel cycles.
Political coalitions in FBR development
Although a sociological policy theory explains how and why actors, non-
actors, organizational structures, and standards of rationality converged in
all three countries during the early development of the FBR, it fails to address
adequately other important features of the policy process and its outcomes.
Even in the early time period, France, the United States, and West Germany
exhibited some notable FBR policy differences. Coalition theory shows that
the relative strength of the key actors in FBR policy varied across countries.
Simultaneously, unique coalitions in FBR policy emerged in each country
during the 1960s and these coalitions cannot be interpreted simply in terms
of theories about sociological or political structures of interests. Coalition
theory, however, does not explain the variation in outcomes of FBR dem-
onstration reactor projects in that time period.
In the United States, the early dominance of national research laboratories
43. For the calculation of reactor development strategies in France see J. Andriot with
J. Gaussens, Economie et perspectives de l’energie atomique (Paris: Dunod, 1964); for the United
States see U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Potential Nuclear Power Growth Patterns (Wash-
ington, D.C.: GPO, 1970); and for West Germany, Wolf Hafele and Helmut Kramer, Technischer
und wirtschaftlicher Stand sowie Aussichten der Kernenergie in der Kraftwirtschaft der Bun-
desrepublik (Karlsruhe: GfK/KFA, 1971).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 81
and private industry in FBR policy ended in the mid- I 960s when the failure
of past development programs became apparent. One small research breeder
designed by Argonne National Laboratory suffered a partial core melt-down
during experimentation; a second reactor, facing engineering and financing
problems, was completed five years behind schedule and over budget. Simi-
larly, the FERMI-reactor was beset by technical and financial problems, and
experienced a partial core melt-down soon after completion in 1966. The
failure of private industry and national laboratories set the stage for leadership
to shift to the central AEC staff, which, supported by the congressional
representation of the nuclear community in the Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy, embarked on a more centralized, state-controlled FBR program in
1965, closely modeled after the successful program to develop reactors for
navy submarines in the 1950s.44 The new program focused on the devel-
opment and quality control of innovative reactor systems components rather
than on complete demonstration plants, and limited the role national lab-
oratories and industry could play to subcontracting. By spreading around
industrial contracts, the AEC intended to preempt development of a monopoly
in the nuclear reactor industry. However, centralized program direction,
coupled with widely dispersed research contracts, ignored the most expe-
rienced and knowledgeable industrial and scientific institutions in the FBR
arena, and soon proved unworkable. These organizational failures are high-
lighted by the Fast Flux Testing Facility (FFTF) project for breeder fuel
elements. Scheduled to begin operation in 1973, it was actually delayed until
1980, by which time its estimated costs had escalated from $87.5 million
to $1.5 billion.45 Not surprisingly, industry, national laboratories, and then
the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy soon grew dissatisfied with the AEC
program. In the late 1960s, they demanded a large breeder demonstration
plant be built under control of industry and utilities.
In West Germany, a strong scientific community in the major national
laboratory at Karlsruhe sought full control over the emerging FBR program
in the 1960s and asked the Ministry of Science to restrict industry to sub-
contractor status for the testing and the demonstration of FBR facilities. The
administrative management of the government’s FBR program did not have
a large independent staff of experts, unlike the AEC, and relied primarily
on industrial expertise. In the conflict between science and industry about
the control of the FBR program, the ministry allied itself with industry, a
move that was consistent with the overall philosophy of German industrial
policy to allow private business to take as much initiative as possible.46 In
44. A detailed analysis of the navy reactor program can be found in Richard G. Hewlett and
Francis Duncan, Nuclear Navy, 1946-1962 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974).
45. For the U.S. breeder program in the 1960s see Michael D. Stiefel, “Government Com-
mercialization of Large Scale Technology: The U.S. Breeder Reactor Program, 1964-1976”
(Ph.D. diss., MIT, June 1981).
46. A good account of the controversy about leadership in the German FBR program is
Keck, Policy-Making in a Nuclear Program, pp. 67ff., 80ff.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
82 International Organization
1964, a project committee of the ministry asked for industrial bids to design
breeder demonstration plants. From then on, the leadership of the FBR
program remained firmly in the hands of a few large companies in the electrical
and engineering industries, most notably Siemens. National laboratories par-
ticipated only in basic research and component development. Industry even
designed and built the first sodium-cooled breeder test reactor at Karlsruhe.
The German FBR program emphasized industrial self-regulation: that is,
industrial consortia developed the substantive technological choices and pro-
grams, while the state underwrote a major fraction of the development costs
and risks. Under the leadership of Siemens, engineers designed a sodium-
cooled FBR that closely resembled the U.S. design (West German engineers
opted for plutonium-oxide fuel elements and sodium as a coolant). Another
consortium, under the leadership of the electromechanical manufacturer All-
gemeine Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft (AEG), proposed a very different steam-
cooled breeder reactor. In 1969, after a protracted conflict, that project was
abandoned when it became clear that a lack of testing facilities and the less
advanced state of international research on this reactor design would throw
the project far behind the liquid metal (sodium-cooled) FBR.47
In contrast to the West German and the American experience, the French
FBR development was not hampered by major conflicts between the principal
groups of actors. As in the other countries, a large government research
facility, Cadarache, was involved in the program effort. Unlike in the other
countries, however, the administrative leadership of the CEA had unusual
authority over the research community. A conflict between the nuclear re-
search community, and the engineers and administrators in the CEA head-
quarters had been resolved in favor of the latter in the early 1950s.48 Unlike
in the other countries, the French engineering and electromechanical industries
were, both in terms of know-how and economic potential, too weak and
fragmented to assume leadership of a research program as complex as the
breeder technology.
The absence of industrial competition and the strength of the administrators
and engineers in the CEA led to a more concentrated research effort than
in other countries. Early on the CEA committed itself to specific technical
pathways (e.g., the reactor coolant and the chemical composition of the fuel
elements); it built cumulatively on past research findings and gradually in-
creased the size of reactor components and facilities.49 A crucial step in this
process was the construction of a 20-megawatt (thermal) experimental breeder
47. The conflict about the choice of FBR technologies in West Germany is discussed in
numerous contributions to Atomwirtschaft-Atomtechnik 14 (April 1969).
48. For the conflict between scientists and engineers-administrators in the early development
of the French CEA, see Lawrence Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth
Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), and Spencer R. Weart, Scientists in
Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979).
49. For the French choice of reactor technology, see CEA, Rapport annuel (Paris, 1962),
p. 118.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 83
reactor called RAPSODIE. Private industry was involved in this project as
a subcontractor. For this purpose, CEA arranged the formation of an industrial
consortium (GAAA, Groupement Atomique Alsacienne Atlantique).
Both coalition and domestic regime theories would predict the dominance
of private industry in the West German case and of a combination of civil
administrators and engineers in France. The West German state had tra-
ditionally abstained from directly shaping industrial policy in the post-World
War II era and kept an arm’s-length relationship to business, relying on tax
and foreign-trade policies to create a climate conducive to technological
innovation and economic growth.50 On the other hand, the French state was
a major actor in industrial modernization throughout the 1 960s, attempting
to reorganize fragmented, weak, and outdated industrial sectors into inter-
nationally competitive corporations with access to state-of-the-art technol-
ogy.5′ Domestic regime theory, however, would not have predicted the process
of coalition formation in the U.S. breeder program of the 1 960s. The American
state, like its West German counterpart, generally displays characteristics of
a “weak” state relative to the private economy.52 Nevertheless, a state-
centered policy coalition did emerge temporarily in the FBR program, al-
though it lasted only a short time. The ensuing realignment brought the
American FBR policy process in closer agreement with what domestic regime
theory would have predicted.
Regime theory and policy outcomes: FBR demonstration reactors
Although regime theory is ill-equipped to explain the process of FBR
policies in the 1 960s, it sheds some light on one particular task and outcome
within these programs, the construction of large FBR demonstration plants
on the order of from 250 to 350 megawatts (electric) in each country. Such
plants had been designed in the mid- I 960s, when the United States appeared
the clear technological leader, equally ahead of France and West Germany.
Each country’s success in actually bringing facilities on-line, however, differed
dramatically as the decade progressed. For the first time, the political visibility
of FBR programs was raised beyond the narrow bounds of actors within the
highly technical policy arenas; the programs drew new actors, such as the
electric utilities and national finance industries, into the policy process and
thus made the impact of more general, country-specific policy styles felt on
FBR policy.
In the United States, under the onslaught of increasing pressure by the
50. Cf. Hans-Joachim Amdt, West Germany: Politics of Non-Planning (Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press, 1966).
51. See Keith Pavitt, “Government Support for Industrial Research and Development in
France: Theory and Practice,” Minerva 14 (Autumn 1976), pp. 330-54, and John Zysman,
“The French State in the International Economy,” in Katzenstein, Between Power and Plenty.
52. Krasner, Defending the National Interest, chap. 3.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
84 International Organization
reactor industry and congressional supporters of nuclear research expendi-
tures, the AEC leadership had to concede authority over the initiation of a
demonstration reactor project in 1969. But because of several problems,
defining the project and arranging for contractors took no less than four
years. The first conflict involved selecting the major industrial contractors
of the project. Eventually, all major reactor manufacturers (notably General
Electric, Westinghouse, and the engineering firm Bechtel) were invited to
participate in the project. The second problem concerned financing. The
U.S. Bureau of the Budget insisted private industry share the financial risks
involved. But as a result the electric utilities, whom the AEC designated to
operate the plant, were reluctant to commit resources to the project. Protracted
negotiations between the manufacturing industry, a national consortium of
electric utilities, and the AEC yielded only a fixed contribution of $240
million by the utilities, with the state absorbing all the remaining construction
costs (estimated to be about $500 million in the early 1 970s) and all potential
cost overruns.53 A third problem concerned the management of the dem-
onstration project. The initial agreement rested on a very complex distribution
of authority between the AEC, the utility consortium, and the manufacturing
industry, which soon proved unworkable.54 As the cost estimates of the
project rose dramatically and the percentage of the private financial contri-
bution to the overall project therefore decreased, the Energy Research and
Development Agency (ERDA), successor to the AEC, took over authority
for the entire project.
Similar struggles over the financing and institutional design of a demon-
stration project also burdened the West German FBR program. Utilities
resisted pledging open-ended financial support for the project, although the
public authorities, backed by the Finance Ministry, originally insisted on it.
But, as in the United States, in the final instance the government assumed
all contingency costs, and the utilities and manufacturers contributed only
a fixed and relatively small sum of the project costs (DM 120 million out
of an original estimate of about DM 1.5 billion in 1972). Unlike the U.S.
case, the management of the project went to industry, reaffirming the self-
regulated character of German technology policy. The Siemens subsidiary
Interatom had emerged as the only plausible general contractor for the dem-
onstration plant, once AEG had withdrawn from the FBR development in
1969. But the reactor industry and utilities still had to settle a number of
53. Documents of the “project definition” phase in the LMFBR program are published in
the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, LMFBR Demonstration Plant Program: Proceedings of
the Senior Utility Steering Committee and of the Senior Utility Technical Advisory Committee
(Washington, D.C., 1972).
54. Changes in the FBR project management were discussed by the Joint Economic Committee
of the U.S. Congress, Fast Breeder Reactor Program (Washington, D.C., 1975), pp. 2273ff.;
see also U.S. General Accounting Office, The LMFBR Program: Past, Present, and Future
(Washington, D.C., April 1975).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 85
disagreements about the design of the FBR plant. The utilities insisted on
economizing on the costs of reactor and fuel elements, while the manufacturing
industry emphasized technological innovation and high performance. In this
conflict, the utilities prevailed.55 Just as in the United States, resolution of
these problems required about four years (1968-72).
In sharp contrast to West Germany and the United States, institutional
problems proved to be insignificant in the French preparation of a breeder
demonstration project. Organizationally, construction arrangements for the
250-megawatt (electric) Phenix reactor resembled those of the test reactor
RAPSODIE: technology and engineering were provided by the CEA and
subcontracts were given to the industrial consortium GAAA.
Unlike the RAPSODIE project, the French utility, Electricite de France
(EDF), participated in the project. But its role and concerns sharply contrasted
with those of electric utilities in the West German and American breeder
projects. In these countries, utilities had to risk private capital in the research
venture and therefore proved to be difficult partners in the negotiations with
the domestic reactor industries and government agencies. In France, on the
other hand, the nationalized EDF could afford a less risk-averse investment
strategy. The state, in any case, would underwrite the financial risks of the
Phenix project. No wonder, therefore, that the managerial structure of the
project proved less cumbersome than that of FBR projects in the other
countries.
The project’s tight organizational structure, continuity, and incremental
improvement in technology development, and the well-established relation-
ships among the major players (except the EDF) made it possible to build
the French reactor rapidly.56 In just four years (1969-73), before nuclear
energy became a target of intense political controversies and while its com-
petitors in West Germany and the United States were still negotiating the
details of demonstration projects, France completed its FBR plant. The es-
timated costs of the Phenix reactor turned out to be lower by a factor of
three or four (in constant prices) than the estimated costs of the corresponding
projects in the other two countries.57
International systems theory and early FBR development
What remains to be evaluated is the influence of the international system
on domestic FBR policies. At least in the 1960s, the international political
55. Keck, Policy-Making in a Nuclear Program, pp. 148-50, praises the economizing spirit
of the utilities. But these savings might have been erased by project delays due to the lengthy
negotiations.
56. The Phenix project is described in G. Vendryes et al., “Situation et perspectives de la
filiere de reacteurs a neutrons rapides en France,” in United Nations and International Energy
Authority, Fourth International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, vol. 5
(Geneva, 1971).
57. U.S. Energy Research and Development Agency, Energy Policies in the European Com-
munity (Washington, D.C., 1975), p. 132, estimates the price of the Phenix reactor at about
$530 million.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
86 International Organization
configuration sheds little light on FBR development policies. In all three
countries, nuclear proliferation and security worries had subsided or were,
in the wake of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program (1953-54), divorced
from concerns about commercial nuclear energy. There was also little fear
of international energy supply shortages, which could have increased the
significance of the FBR as a future energy supply.58
Certainly the breeder played a role in the international technology com-
petition. But such competition was less a national concern than a preoc-
cupation of domestic subgovernments, which were often at odds with the
general foreign-policy commitments of their countries. For instance, officials
in the FBR subgovernments in France and West Germany competed for
international technological leadership in FBR development, while national
politicians intended to use long-range nuclear technology development as a
vehicle of European integration.59 The budgetary constraints on breeder pro-
grams indicate the FBR’s limited role with respect to national interests. There
is also little evidence to support the “declining hegemony” argument, which
would predict vigorous efforts in France and West Germany to catch up
with or surpass a faltering U.S. program. The difference between the French
and the West German programs renders this hypothesis invalid. Moreover,
U.S. budget outlays for breeder development throughout the 1 960s remained
far higher than in the other two countries. Although France and West Ger-
many benefited from U.S. technological leadership by avoiding some technical
dead ends (such as metallic fuel elements in the early test reactors), the role
of the “advantages of backwardness” pales in significance to the influence
of various coalitions and institutions concerned with the FBR.60 International
systems theory does not, finally, offer a set of hypotheses consistent with
the reality of FBR development during the 1960s and 1970s in the three
countries.
3. The crisis of FBR programs in the 1970s and early 1980s
In the 1970s, national FBR policies had to cope with three new challenges.
Correspondingly, the causal structure underlying policy changed in this period.
Domestic regime theory provides the most persuasive explanation for the
58. Although some authors have claimed a continuing concern with energy security in French
policy since the 1920s, public documents show that such worries had subsided in the 1960s
and early 1970s and that a further rise in oil imports was no longer considered undesirable.
See Commissariat Generale du Plan, Plan et prospectives: l’energie (Paris: Colin, 1972).
59. Cooperation in the French and West German FBR programs soon gave way to intense
competition; cf. Henry Nau, National Policy and International Technology (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1974), chap. 8.
60. Note, for instance, the loss of three to four years in the West German and U.S. FBR
demonstration projects relative to the French effort. These delays were due entirely to institutional
difficulties of the development program.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 87
three countries’ FBR policies, but international systems theory makes at
least an indirect contribution.
Sociological policy theory and the FBR crisis
Sociological theory can explain the emergence of new issues, actors, and
interests associated with FBR policy in the 1 970s, but it cannot account for
any structural features of political decision making in FBR policy arenas.
New groups of actors began to participate in FBR policy making when they
began to perceive the rapid development of the new technology as damaging
to their interests. For some, material costs and rewards of collective actions
were not the motivating factors, which suggests that the logic of interest
mobilization described earlier requires modification. There were at least three
developments and challenges that brought about the emergence of new po-
litical actors and interests in FBR policy.
The first new challenge that mobilized additional sets of political actors
and reoriented the interests of established actors was the energy crisis of
1973-74. The sudden realization that Western industrial countries were vul-
nerable to foreign energy suppliers reinvigorated the search for new energy
sources and the FBR figured prominently among them. Faced with the energy
crisis, most of the past conflicts between the players within existing FBR
policy arenas disappeared. For instance, utilities in West Germany and the
United States became fully committed to the breeder.
All three countries also faced the second challenge of antinuclear power
movements, which grew out of concern for the preservation of the natural
environment and the protection of nature and society from man-made risks.6′
In each country, the rapid growth of nuclear power programs attracted their
attention and criticism, and eventually led them to oppose the large FBR
demonstration plants, thought to be the next logical step toward escalating
the nuclear power economy. First and foremost, they challenged the safety
of FBR technology. They also questioned its economic efficiency, given the
great uncertainties about the cost of reactors and of the corresponding fuel
cycle, as well as the projected costs of natural uranium.62 Later, the debate
turned to the consequences of the use of very dangerous, militarily sensitive,
nuclear technologies to preserve civil rights in a democracy, and to the impact
of a global “plutonium economy” on the maintenance of nuclear nonpro-
liferation policies.63
61. For a broader discussion of these movements see Herbert Kitschelt, “Political Opportunity
Structures and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Countries,” British Journal
of Political Science 16 (Winter 1986), and “New Social Movements in the United States and
West Germany,” Political Power and Social Theory 5 (1985).
62. Thomas B. Cochran, The Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor: An Environmental and
Economic Critique (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974).
63. See Amory B. Lovins, Soft Energy Paths (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1977), and Robert
Jungk, Der Atomstaat (Munich: Kindler, 1978).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
88 International Organization
The antinuclear movement’s environmental concerns overlapped with the
third challenge to established FBR policies: a reawakening of the foreign-
policy debate about the link between “peaceful” nuclear energy technology
and nuclear weapons. In light of the nuclear explosion in India in 1974 and
of numerous other nuclear development programs in Iraq, Pakistan, Ar-
gentina, Taiwan, Israel, and South Africa, the compatibility of complete
nuclear fuel cycles, a necessary component of a world breeder economy, and
the maintenance of an international nonproliferation regime became sensitive
issues. This latter problem is, of course, central to the explanation put forth
by international systems theories for FBR policy in the 1 970s. Sociological
policy theory cannot quite explain why FBR proliferation concerns were
loudly voiced not only within the U.S. foreign-policy community but also
within those of the other two countries.
Although environmental and consumer opposition to FBRs existed in each
of the three countries in the 1 970s, political decision arenas, decision-making
processes, and outcomes diverged further than in the preceding period. The
new actors and interests developed different capacities to modify FBR policies
and to redefine the nuclear subgovernments that linked the manufacturing
industry, research laboratories, electric utilities, and promotional nuclear
state agencies within each country. Sociological policy theories are unable
to explain this divergence. Instead, they would predict similar policy struc-
tures, processes, and outcomes as a consequence of similar issues in each
country.
Political coalition theories and FBR policy in the 1970s
Does coalition theory predict policy formation more accurately than so-
ciological policy theory? Coalition theory predicts that the challenge to es-
tablished nuclear policy arenas and policy decisions is strongest where newly
mobilized demands are most powerful or where the established proponents
of FBR are the weakest. As I discuss elsewhere, there is little indication that
antinuclear sentiment differed systematically among the three countries or
that it was strongest where the FBR program was impeded the most, namely
the United States.64 It appears rather that, at the height of the nuclear power
controversy (1976-79), between 35 and 45 percent of the population sampled
in opinion polls opposed nuclear power. West Germany certainly displayed
the highest level of antinuclear activities (demonstrations, petitions, lawsuits),
and the breeder reactor demonstration project at Kalkar was one of the
antinuclear movement’s prime targets. But, though delayed, the project sur-
vived.65 Similarly, the French antinuclear movement targeted the site of a
64. See Kitschelt, “Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest.”
65. For the politicization of the breeder demonstration reactor in West Germany see Herbert
Kitschelt, Kernenergiepolitik. Arena eines gesellschaftlichen Konflikts (Frankfurt: Campus, 1980),
chap. 5.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 89
new precommercial, very large 1,200-megawatt (electric) Super-Phenix FBR
for several massive demonstrations but was unsuccessful in even slightly
affecting the planning and implementation of the reactor.66 On the other
hand, in the United States, where opposition was much less visible and more
soft-spoken, the breeder demonstration project was nevertheless abandoned
at the end of a struggle that lasted almost ten years (1974-83).
Differences in the strength of probreeder coalitions also provide only very
limited support for coalition theory. The long-standing participants in FBR
policy arenas closed ranks in all three countries. Utilities supported FBR
development unequivocally. And even in the 1980s when expectations about
future electricity demand growth had been revised downward dramatically,
both in the United States and in West Germany, private utilities offered to
spend more of their own funds to save FBR development programs.67 Also,
the state agencies responsible for nuclear technology in all three countries
never wavered in their support of breeder reactors. In fact, nuclear subgov-
ernments were able to put their stamp on long-term energy programs that
were developed as an immediate response to the energy crisis of 1973-74.
In each case, FBRs emerged as the highest-priority future energy technology.68
Finally, coalition theory proponents could argue that the coalitions in the
three countries exhibited different degrees of fragility and resourcefulness.
Although this may have been true for the 1960s, it does not hold for the
1970s and early 1980s. By then, all three countries had concentrated their
advanced reactor industries in a very few powerful, capable firms. Even
France had eliminated its traditional industrial weakness by nurturing a
single national “champion” in the nuclear industry, Framatome, which was
then owned in equal shares by Creusot-Loire and the CEA.69 Its subsidiary,
Novatome, was charged with the industrial implementation of the FBR project
Super-Phenix. To conclude that the resourcefulness of the French electric
utility (EDF) is so much greater than that of its West German and American
66. French antinuclear opposition is reviewed in Francis Fagnani and Alexandre Nicolon,
Nucleopolis: materiaux pour l’analyse d’une societe nucleaire (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires
de Grenoble, 1979), and most recently in Tony Chafer, “The Anti-Nuclear Movement and the
Rise of Political Ecology,” in Philip G. Cemy, ed., Social Movements and Protest in France
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1982).
67. In West Germany agreements in April 1983 increased the utilities’ and the reactor man-
ufacturers’ shares of the FBR demonstration reactor’s cost to DM 1.42 billion, or 22% of the
project costs (Nuclear Engineering International, 28 June 1983, p. 3). Similar arrangements
were aired during 1983 in the United States, but Congress terminated funding before they could
bear fruit.
68. Cf. Bundesregierung, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1. Fortschreibung des Energiepro-
gramms (Bonn: Bundestags-Drucksache VII/2713, 1974); U.S. Energy Research and Development
Agency, A National Plan for Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration (Washington,
D.C., 1975); Commissariat Generale du Plan, Rapport de la commission de l’energie sur les
orientations de la politique energetique (Paris: Ministere de l’Industrie, 1975).
69. For the reorganization of the French nuclear industry see Jacques Gaussens, “Creation
d’une industrie nucleaire et arboriculture,” Revue de l’energie 30 (August-September 1979),
pp. 597-6 17.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
90 International Organization
counterparts is difficult. Rather, what appears to have set France apart from
the other two countries are the specific ties between industry and state agencies,
the variations of which in the 1970s closely correlate with broad patterns
of political regime structures in France, the United States, and West Germany.
The lack of a direct link between the composition of political coalitions
and government policy is also indicated by the minimal impact government
changes have had on FBR policy. In the West German and French cases,
FBR programs survived changes in government in 1981 (France) and 1982
(West Germany), despite the highly politicized nature of nuclear policy. Con-
versely, no matter what the executive’s official position on FBR policy in
the United States was, the FBR program declined during the Nixon, Ford,
and Carter administrations, and it was finally killed during the Reagan
administration, Reagan’s vigorous support notwithstanding.
It is noteworthy that similar economic and political coalitions led to quite
different national policy structures, processes, and outcomes, and that different
coalitions led to similarities of policy formation. Resourcefulness, levels of
political mobilization, and control of the executive branch of government,
contrary to what the pluralist and coalition positions suggest, do not directly
translate into policy. The domestic regime or “opportunity structures” that
endowed the challenging interests with different capacities to “disorganize”
the probreeder coalitions and to alter policies made the crucial difference
between the nuclear policies in the three countries during the 1970s and
early 1980s.
Political regime theories and FBR policies in crisis
In the United States, new political actors in the nuclear controversy en-
countered a permeable institutional field of channels that could be penetrated
and used as a base to articulate and aggregate political demands in the battle
against the established probreeder subgovernment. The fluid political structure
allowed political coalitions to form that eventually killed the breeder project.
This openness is evidenced by the access antinuclear groups gained to agencies
charged with monitoring environmental matters. As early as 1972, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to criticize the unsatisfactory
state of environmental impact research on FBRs and their fuel cycles. In
1975, both the EPA and the General Accounting Office joined antinuclear
forces in criticizing favorable economic cost-benefit analyses of the FBR
program.70 In the same year, these criticisms precipitated a congressional
compromise about the funding of the FBR demonstration reactor at Clinch
River, according to which public expenses for the project were not to be
authorized in a single stroke but, rather, incrementally or on an annual basis.
70. See, for instance, the testimony of an EPA representative in the hearings of U.S. Congress,
Joint Economic Committee, Fast Breeder Reactor Program, p. 334.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 91
This facilitated the campaign against the breeder by the Carter administration
and by congressional opponents.
With increasing public sentiment opposed to nuclear power, many members
of Congress switched to an antinuclear position. Not bound by parliamentary
party discipline, a politically heterogeneous group of political entrepreneurs
in Congress coalesced to oppose the FBR; its membership cut across party
lines and included environmentally oriented members of Congress and fiscal
conservatives, who opposed any “industrial policy.” This group eventually
controlled a majority of the votes in both houses and killed the Clinch River
project in 1983.
In the same vein, President Carter built his political coalition around those
influential segments of public constituencies and state agencies which opposed
the breeder. The very heterogeneity of the Carter antibreeder coalition and
the wavering position of the administration on which argument to use against
the FBR show the fluidity of American policy makers and the individualistic
rationality of political players in this framework.7′ The administrative units
promoting and administering nuclear energy research in the newly founded
Department of Energy (DOE) remained faithful to the breeder, while the
political leadership of the department, for pragmatic reasons, wanted to
replace the Clinch River project with a more advanced reactor design. On
the other side, environmentally oriented politicians in the president’s White
House staff and in executive agencies opposed nuclear technology in principle.
In between, the foreign-policy community split over the advisability of de-
veloping the breeder reactor and its fuel cycle technology, given the dangers
of the international nuclear proliferation.72
But during the Carter years, the probreeder forces in Congress remained
able to counterbalance the antinuclear assault and salvage funds for the
demonstration project. The position of the administration and of Congress
led to a political stalemate: Congress, with shrinking majorities, authorized
and allocated funds for the Clinch River reactor; at the same time, President
Carter interrupted and terminated the licensing procedure for the project.
Construction of the plant could not begin, but reactor components were
ordered and built. The probreeder Reagan administration was not able to
bring the FBR program back on the track. Faced with the fiscal crisis of the
U.S. federal budget, congressional majorities for the breeder, already slim,
eventually disappeared.
71. This analysis is based on Richard L. Williams, “The Need for Energy vs. the Danger of
Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: President Carter’s Decision on the Clinch River Plutonium
Breeder” (Ms., National War College, Washington, D.C., 1978).
72. In 1975 the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency solicited a critical report on
the proliferation impacts of FBR fuel cycles by Albert Wohlstetter et al., Swords from Plowshares:
The Military Potential of Civilian Nuclear Energy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).
Influential during the Carter administration was a report by a Ford Foundation energy project
under direction of Spurgeon M. Keeney, Nuclear Power: Issues and Choices (Cambridge, Mass.:
Ballinger, 1979), with conclusions critical of the FBR project.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
92 International Organization
In both France and West Germany, party and government discipline made
it impossible for antinuclear groups to gain access to the legislative arena to
the same extent as in the United States. Even the French Socialists and the
West German Social Democrats, who were under considerable internal pres-
sure to change their position on the breeder reactor, did not yield on this
issue though it divided their own electorates. They were caught between
losing the labor unions, which in both countries continued to support a
vigorous nuclear development policy by large majorities, and the younger,
educated “new middle-class” constituencies of the left-wing parties, which
opposed the FBR. The two socialist parties, therefore, tried to sidestep the
conflict.73 In West Germany, the Social Democratic government finally called
for a parliamentary commission to study the breeder reactor. The commis-
sion’s mid-term report, released just before the 1980 national election, was
ambiguous enough to encourage antinuclear activists.74 In its final report,
however, following the election, the commission endorsed the breeder. In
France, the Socialist Party called for a “national debate” on nuclear power.75
After the Socialist victory in 1981, it endorsed the nuclear policy of the
preceding government with few modifications following a very brief parlia-
mentary debate on energy policy in October 1981. The breeder program
remained untouched by these leadership changes.
None of the established political parties in France or West Germany were
able or willing to represent the antinuclear demands forthrightly. Their re-
luctance has strengthened the position of those who have called for new
antinuclear and ecological parties in both countries.76
At the same time, the opponents of nuclear energy could not gain access
to the executive agencies of the state in order to find representatives of their
interests in the bureaucracy. Neither France nor West Germany has envi-
ronmental policy agencies as independent as the EPA. Moreover, statist and
corporatist traditions and orientations in the civil service of both countries
have predisposed bureaucrats and agencies against direct interaction with
organized groups that are not licensed and formally recognized as repre-
sentative of “respectable” constituencies.77
73. The difficulties of integrating the nuclear issue into the established cleavage structures of
political parties are described in Dorothy Nelkin and Michael Pollack, “The Political Parties
and the Nuclear Energy Debate in France and Germany,” Comparative Politics 12 (January
1980), pp. 127-41.
74. See Deutscher Bundestag, Enquete-Kommission “Zukiinftige Kernenergiepolitik,” Zwis-
chenbericht (Bonn: Bundestags-Drucksache VIII/4341, 1980).
75. Cf. the foreword by Franqois Mitterrand to Etienne Bauer et al., Pour une autre politique
nucleaire. rapport du comite nucleaire environment et societe du parti socialist (Paris: Flammarion,
1978).
76. This is not meant to suggest a monocausal explanation of the rise of ecological parties
in Western Europe. See Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, “Ecology Parties in Western Europe,” West
European Politics 5 (January 1982), pp. 68-75.
77. For France see Ezra Suleiman, Politics, Power, and Bureaucracy in France (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1974); for West Germany, Renate Mayntz and Fritz Scharpf, Policy-
Making in the German Federal Bureaucracy (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1975).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 93
Variations among the three countries that had important consequences
for FBR policies can also be discovered with respect to the capacities of
states to implement industrial policy. In West Germany and the United
States, the design of licensing procedures for industrial plants reflects the
arm’s-length relationship between state and business.78 The state symbolically
assumes the position of a neutral arbiter who settles disputes between the
proponents and opponents of an industrial project. Although state agencies
have clearly been sympathetic to nuclear manufacturers and utilities in li-
censing hearings, the nature of the procedures compels the regulatory agencies
to reason with antinuclear groups and to examine their arguments. In the
cases of the West German FBR project at Kalkar and the American Clinch
River breeder project, these procedures delayed implementation considerably;
project applicants were required to submit additional evidence for their cases
and the regulatory agencies imposed numerous design changes on the pro-
posed plants. In the West German case, initial partial construction permits
required additional safety equipment that increased the cost of the reactor
by DM 500 million and delayed the project by about twenty months.79
Further delays and additional design requirements followed; the reactor is
currently scheduled to go into operation in 1986-a delay of eight years-
at four times the originally calculated cost. In both the United States and
West Germany, as the nuclear controversy heated up and as the probreeder
coalition tried to exert pressure on the state licensing authorities, these became
instead increasingly independent-minded. Faced with open conflict, the reg-
ulatory agencies had to preserve their legitimacy vis-a-vis the antagonists
by decreasing the opportunities for regulatory co-optation.80
After exhausting opportunities to appeal licensing procedures, West German
and American antinuclear groups could still resort to further litigation. As
early as 1973, the Union of Concerned Scientists initiated a lawsuit that
compelled the AEC to prepare an environmental impact statement not only
for the breeder demonstration reactor but for the entire FBR fuel cycle as
well in the course of licensing the Clinch River project. Critical project delays
resulted from this decision. In West Germany, lawsuits against the construc-
tion of the demonstration reactor never interrupted work on the project but
attracted wide publicity and certainly pressured the licensing authorities to
tighten safety requirements.
78. For a comparison of U.S. and French nuclear licensing procedures see Michael W. Golay,
Iri Saragossi, and Jean-Marc Willefest, Comparative Analysis of U.S. and French Nuclear Power
Plant Siting and Construction: Regulatory Policies and Their Economic Consequences (Cambridge:
MIT Energy Laboratory Report, 1977). For the West German licensing process see Kitschelt,
Kernenergiepolitik, chap. 4.
79. Klaus Traube, “Intemationale Brutreaktor-Entwicklung,” Atomwirtschaft-Atomtechnik
21 (September-October 1976), pp. 471-79; Alois Brandstetter, “Stand der Schnellbriiterent-
wicklung,” Atomwirtschaft-Atomtechnik 22 (September 1979), pp. 477-83.
80. Critiques of “co-optation” theories of industrial regulation are elaborated in James Q.
Wilson, ed., The Politics of Regulation (New York: Basic, 1980).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
94 International Organization
The French fast breeder coalition encountered none of these constraints
on nuclear policy making. The Phenix reactor and the more recent Super-
Phenix project were licensed in an atmosphere of close cooperation between
the project groups designing the reactors (CEA engineers, the nuclear man-
ufacturer, and the utility) and the licensing authority; there were no oppor-
tunities for direct public participation.8′ A lawsuit filed against the construction
license was promptly decided in favor of industry and the state.82 This sup-
portive environment ensured the rapid progress of both reactors even though
the Super-Phenix met intense opposition from the burgeoning French an-
tinuclear movement.83 The Super-Phenix reactor was completed in early
1985 and is expected to start operation in early 1986 after testing all reactor
components. And Novatome is already preparing the design of a more mature
commercial 1,500-megawatt (electric) FBR to be submitted with a firm cost
estimate to the French government in 1986.
Domestic political structures thus covary consistently with the structures,
processes, and outcomes of FBR development in the three countries. Where
opponents to breeder reactors gained access to policy making and simul-
taneously subverted the program’s implementation, as in the United States,
the effectiveness and efficiency of the breeder program suffered most. Where
they succeeded in doing neither, as in France, the program was implemented
almost without delay, albeit with high initial costs. West Germany is an
intermediate case. Because the institutions of political articulation and ag-
gregation were closed to the opponents of breeder reactor policy, new critical
actors tried to delay the breeder demonstration plant by subverting the state’s
implementation procedures. Although the efficiency and legitimacy of the
demonstration plant declined as the conflict intensified, in the end, FBR
policy survived the challenge.
Yet is the link between FBR policies and domestic regime structures really
more than a mere coincidence? At least one alternative causal theory has
yet to be considered: namely, that the position of the countries in the inter-
national political-economic system may have determined the differing policy
courses. The claim that domestic regimes are causal determinants of breeder
reactor politics would be strengthened if such an international systems ex-
planation were found to be inconclusive.
The international system and FBR policies
International systems theory proposes two security and one economic
argument to explain differences in national preferences, policy processes, and
81. M. Rappin, “Dezentralisierung des franzosischen Genehmigungsverfahrens,” Atomwirt-
schaft-Atomtechnik 27 (January 1982), pp. 79-81.
82. Nuclear News 22 (August 1979), pp. 52-53.
83. For the development of the Super-Phenix project see Gordon Friedlander, “Breeder
Progress Shifts Overseas,” Electrical World 194 (July 1980), pp. 108-17; C. Pierre Zaleski,
“Breeder Reactors in France,” Science 208 (11 April 1980), pp. 137-44.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 95
outcomes of FBR policy. They concern differential attention to nuclear pro-
liferation in the three countries, variations in their international energy de-
pendence, and differences in their foreign-trade policies and international
strategies of economic competition.
International systems theory has little trouble explaining why domestic
foreign-policy actors became concerned with nuclear proliferation in the mid-
1 970s. What is more difficult to understand is why the link between civilian
and military technology was perceived so differently in the United States,
France, and West Germany. According to the collective goods argument I
discuss in the first section of this article, the United States, as the greatest
beneficiary of nonproliferation policies, would be expected to carry the greatest
burden of adjustment and abstain from civilian nuclear technologies (such
as the breeder reactor and fuel reprocessing) which potentially undermine
nuclear nonproliferation. But such a policy would have been doomed to
failure, because nonproliferation is provided either entirely or not at all-
and the minimal size of the coalition needed to produce the good is equal
to that of the group composed of all potential suppliers of nuclear know-
how, which includes France and West Germany. The lesser weight given to
nonproliferation issues in the latter two countries thus torpedoed the chances
for a global policy of nonproliferation.
What is puzzling from the point of view of collective goods theory is the
observation that even within the United States, the Carter administration’s
rationale for a “technical fix” nuclear policy (no breeder, no fuel reprocessing,
hence no proliferation) was deeply controversial, especially within the foreign-
policy community.84 Although several influential reports in 1976 advocated
the technical fix, members of the foreign-policy community joined traditional
champions of nuclear power to rebut the idea that halting work on fast
breeder reactors and the associated fuel cycles would retard the spread of
nuclear weapons. They pointed out that there are much cheaper ways to
acquire nuclear weapons, for instance, the so-called hot-and-dirty methods
of reprocessing fuels from research reactors. In the final analysis, the merits
of a technical fix policy hinges upon its capacity to forewarn about nuclear
weapons programs in other countries. Opponents of the technical fix policy
view this capacity as very limited. Nuclear policy in their view is not a matter
of technological fixes but of developing international standards of institutional
safety and controls.85 Both West German and French foreign-policy makers
shared this institutionalist view of the FBR issue.86 In the United States even
84. In addition to references in fn. 72 see for an explanation of the Carter policy Joseph S.
Nye, “Nonproliferation: A Long-Term Strategy,” Foreign Affairs 56 (April 1978), pp. 601-23.
85. Institutional problems of the nuclear fuel cycle are discussed in Gene Rochlin, Plutonium,
Power and Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).
86. The official French perspective is explained in B. Barre, “The Proliferation Aspects of
Breeder Development,” in Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Nuclear Energy
and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation (London: Francis & Taylor, 1979).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
96 International Organization
former supporters of technical fix policies came around to this point of view
in the course of the debate.87 The Reagan administration, however, has
abandoned this strategy.
Different cognitive perceptions of the link between civilian and military
nuclear technologies apparently cannot be attributed simply to different global
interests of states.88 Instead, actor-level studies of domestic information
processing and decision-making capacities are needed to account for the
social construction of policy choices,89 so we turn once again to domestic
regime and coalition theory. The nonproliferation issue could play such an
important part in determining U.S. breeder reactor policy only because the
domestic policy-making process is fluid and permeable: new arguments, easily
communicated through the system, allowed crucial voices in the foreign-
policy community to tip an unstable balance of pro- and anti-breeder forces.
Matters of cognitive perception also play an important role in evaluating
the second international systems hypothesis. We expect countries that are
more vulnerable to a cut-off of foreign energy supplies to develop new do-
mestic fuel alternatives more vigorously and to be willing to pay an economic
security premium on energy supplies.90 Again, at first sight, the data fit the
hypothesis very well. The most vulnerable country, France, has the most
vigorous FBR program, followed by West Germany, which has a somewhat
less serious foreign energy dependence. The United States, with the least
vulnerability to foreign energy supplies, displays the least sense of urgency
about the breeder reactor. It can “afford” to open the FBR policy arena and
slow the political decision-making process through protracted controversy.
However, the logic of this argument has some holes. First, advanced in-
dustrial countries with similar or even greater energy dependence than France,
such as Italy, Japan, and Sweden, have shown much less enthusiasm for
speedy development of the breeder. Conversely, a country with no foreign
energy dependence but one that shares some domestic regime structures
strikingly similar to those of France, namely Britain, has implemented a
program quite similar to the French effort.
Second, we have to look more closely at the nature and meaning of energy
dependence and of the FBR as a remedy. The first column of Table 2 provides
an estimate of economically recoverable uranium resources in the three
87. See Gerard Smith and George Rathjens, “Reassessing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy,”
Foreign Affairs 59 (Spring 1981), pp. 875-94.
88. For this reason, the reconstruction of the conflict as “European energy interests vs. U.S.
nonproliferation interests” is, at best, a single facet of the complex disagreements on nuclear
nonproliferation strategy. Too narrow, therefore, is the analysis by Pierre Lellouche, “Breaking
the Rules without Quite Stopping the Bomb: European Views,” International Organization 35
(Winter 1981), especially pp. 52-53.
89. The role of domestic structures in the shaping of political perceptions and conflicts among
countries has been analyzed by Richard E. Neustadt, Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1970).
90. Cf. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 155-57.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 97
TABLE 2. Estimates of economically recoverable uranium resources
Uranium resources Estimated uranium
Estimated per ton of oil or resources per GW
uranium resources equivalent energy nuclear capacity
(in tons) consumed in 1980 (in year 2000)
France 101,200 0.55 1,690 tons/60 GW
United States 1,868,000 1.02 15,600 tons/120 GW
West Germany 12,000 0.04 480 tons/25 GW
countries.91 The less uranium a country has, the greater will be its dependence
on future foreign uranium supplies and the greater its incentive to develop
fuel-efficient FBRs. Column 2 relates the expected availability of uranium
to the present size of energy consumption, and column 3 to the expected
size of nuclear power programs in operation in the year 2000. What emerges
is that West Germany has by far the lowest supply of uranium, at least in
proportion to its energy consumption. France comes surprisingly close to
the United States, because it has a more frugal energy economy and quite
sizable uranium supplies. West Germany, then, should have the most vigorous
breeder program, not France, if energy security matters most. Proponents
of international systems theory, of course, retort that the West German hedge
against energy vulnerability is its environmentally problematic and expensive
hard-coal industry. The usefulness of the international systems hypothesis,
therefore, remains ambiguous at this point.
The breeder reactor, however, may not be an effective hedge against energy
dependence for a long time to come. Recent studies assessing the economic
and security prospects of FBRs for the United States, France, and West
Germany have calculated that, given reasonable and robust assumptions,
the breeder reactor will make a difference in dependence on foreign energy
supply only in the second third of the 21st century at the earliest, even if
countries are now willing to build a significant number of breeders and thus
to pay an economic “insurance premium” for energy security through com-
paratively expensive power stations.92 And neither will the breeder reactor
and its fuel cycle be competitive with conventional nuclear reactors or, under
some circumstances, coal-powered plants, until that time, even assuming
91. Estimates of natural resources are problematic and subject to political bias. See, for
example, Aaron Wildavsky and Ellen Tenenbaum, The Politics of Mistrust (Beverly Hills: Sage,
1981). To interpret the figures presented here in a meaningful way, we have only to assume
that the bias in the estimates is the same for all three countries.
92. For the United States see Brian Chow, “Comparative Economics of the Breeder and
Light Water Reactor,” Energy Policy 8 (December 1980), pp. 293-307; for France see Dominique
Finon, “Fast Breeder Reactors: The End of a Myth?” Energy Policy 10 (December 1982), pp.
305-21; for West Germany see Otto Keck, “The West German Fast Breeder Programme,”
Energy Policy 8 (December 1980), pp. 277-92.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
98 International Organization
that the actual cost of FBR fuel cycles will not exceed the present highly
uncertain calculations. Security concerns notwithstanding, the early timing
of breeder development in some countries must appear to have been stra-
tegically suboptimal in that the technology cannot be justified either on
grounds of energy efficiency or supply security. Electricity can only substitute
for a limited fraction of present fossil fuel consumption (within reasonable
economic costs) in the absence of major breakthroughs (e.g., practical electric
cars, cheap technologies for hydrogen electrolysis) that dramatically increase
demand.
In West Germany, the proponents of FBRs have quietly retreated from
economic and international security arguments in support of the breeder.93
The most recent government agency research program, for instance, justifies
breeder development more in terms of German competitiveness in the high-
technology field and of testing the social acceptability, the “licensability,”
of a new technology in an industrial society.94 In France, the issue of tech-
nological leadership rather than economic and security concerns has also
assumed a prominent place in the present debate about the future of the
French nuclear program.95 Given the financial burden of a large FBR de-
velopment program, France is now looking for closer international coop-
eration, though without being willing to share its advanced know-how and
technological lead with other countries.96 Even if immediately after the oil
crisis of 1973-74 energy shortages and the upward spiral of energy con-
sumption made the choice of the FBR look rational from the point of view
of countries heavily dependent on foreign supplies, the apparent irrationality
of West Germany and, especially, France in underwriting the continued and
vigorous development of an industrial infrastructure around this technology
remains unexplained.
Similar contradictions arise from an economic international systems ex-
planation of FBR technology competition. Even if we concede that industrial
latecomers (such as West Germany, France, and Japan) tried to narrow the
technology gap vis-a-vis the United States during the 1 960s by interventionist
93. Almost annually the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center revised its estimates of uranium
demand in West Germany downward. Cf. Hans-Henning Hennies, Peter Jansen, and G. Kessler,
“A West German Perspective on the Need for the Plutonium Fueled LMFBR,” Nuclear News
22 (August 1979), pp. 69-75, and Hennies et al., “Die deutsche Briuterentwicklung: Stand und
Perspektiven,” Atomwirtschaft-Atomtechnik 26 (March 1981), pp. 151-55.
94. Bundesministerium fur Forschung und Technologie, Zweites Programm Energieforschung
und Energietechnologien (Bonn: BMFT, 1982), pp. 26, 130.
95. Cf. Nuclear Engineering International 28 (July 1983), p. 4, and 28 (September 1983),
p. 12. The financial problems of the French nuclear program are discussed in Stephen Cohen,
“Informed Bewilderment: French Economic Strategy and the Crisis,” in Cohen and Peter A.
Gourevitch, eds., France in a Troubled World Economy (London: Butterworth, 1982).
96. This issue has recently given rise to frictions between the French and West German FBR
communities. While earlier cooperation agreements provided for a joint precommercial reactor
project in West Germany, France now prefers international contributions to its own Super-
Phenix 2, the design of which is already much further advanced than that of any other project.
Cf. Nuclear Engineering International 29 (June 1984), pp. 7-9.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 99
policies, it does not necessarily follow that the breeder was useful for meeting
that objective. In general, compensatory industrial policies seem to work
most effectively when established and economically successful technologies
in the lead countries serve as guideposts to nations trying to catch up. In
this sense, the model of innovators-latecomers may be difficult to apply to
the case of breeder technology, which faced and still faces an uncertain
technological, economic, and political future.
The question remains: why did some countries view FBRs as a rational
path to reach international technological leadership, while others attributed
much less importance to it? Regime theory explains the domestic and in-
stitutional filters that shape policy formation so as to generate an image of
the FBR as a rational strategy for pursuing political and economic power in
the international system. As Keohane has shown, neorealist international
systems theory cannot abstain from actor-level analyses, because countries
do not acknowledge the cognitions, interests, and values involved in strategic
pursuits as national concerns.97
Domestic regime structures appear to mediate between international power
configurations and national policies. Even if we concede that domestic regime
structures may have represented rational avenues for the pursuit of a state’s
self-interest through active intervention in economic investment and de-
velopment of technology in order to match the technological know-how of
leading countries, such structures develop a relative autonomy and inertia.
Subsequently, the ways in which information about policy options is processed
and interests are sorted out, and the way decisions are made may produce
results that contradict the rationality assumptions of international systems
theory. Domestic regime structures can survive international power config-
urations and give rise to inefficient and ineffective national policies. French
industrial policy making during the previous decade is likely to exemplify
this hypothesis, and the breeder reactor may well be the latest white elephant
produced by this policy style.98 American domestic structures, on the other
hand, in varying degrees transmitted more early warning signals against rapid
FBR development and had greater success in altering established arenas of
nuclear policy making. The parallel to the French and U.S. policy-making
decisions about the development of the supersonic passenger jet in the 1 960s
is suggestive in this respect.
Different domestic policy processes and perceptions of rational action,
finally, may shape not only the instruments but also the objectives of rational
policy action. The rules and payoffs of the game of international technology
development may be perceived differently. Political power and economic
resourcefulness, assumed to be the leading policy objectives of states by
97. See Keohane, “Theory of World Politics,” pp. 516, 518, 519.
98. Critical of French industrial policy is Stanley Hoffmann, “Conclusion: The Impact of the
Fifth Republic on France,” in William G. Andrews and Hoffmann, eds., The Fifth Republic at
Twenty (Albany: SUNY Press, 1981), especially pp. 461-63.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
100 International Organization
neorealist theories, may be displaced under certain circumstances by concerns
with political legitimacy and consensus in countries with domestic structures
that do not clearly locate the state above society and its varied and shifting
interests. Intense domestic policy disagreement stifled the U.S. breeder pro-
gram, whereas the French state had little trouble ignoring the distrust and
open hostility of many citizens toward its nuclear energy policy.
The case of FBR development in France, West Germany, and the United
States does not conclusively refute the value of international systems theory
for explaining policy formation. However, the link between configurations
of power and economic capacities in international systems, and domestic
policies may be weaker and more mediated by irreducibly domestic insti-
tutions than is often assumed. Coalition theory alone appears to contribute
nothing to the explanation of various components of policy formation, and
sociological theory only explains the similarity of social actors mobilized
around FBR policy in all the countries. International systems theory, on the
other hand, provides an explanation of why some new actors have entered
the policy arena. At the same time, international systems configurations have
an impact on public policy making via the mediating role of domestic political
regimes. Clearly, such configurations are most able to account for the struc-
tures, processes, and outcomes of FBR policy making in the three countries.
4. Conclusion
The case of breeder reactor technology policy in France, West Germany,
and the United States shows that no single explanation of public policy
accounts sufficiently for all aspects of policy formation at all times. Tables
3 and 4 summarize the empirical argument of this article and show how
alternate combinations of theoretical approaches explain FBR policy in dif-
ferent time periods. They also highlight the inaccuracies of the simple com-
bination of policy components and theoretical explanations in Table 1. Policy
analysis needs to disaggregate its object of explanation in substantive and
longitudinal respects. The causal structure of public policy making is differ-
entiated and changes over time. Wholesale confrontations between different
theories of policy formation are, therefore, less useful than detailed studies
of the possible connections and compatibilities between various partial theo-
retical models. We need more precise theoretical frameworks that can con-
ceptualize the interplay between different determinants and components of
policy formation.
This article takes one step in the direction of such theoretical models of
policy formation, although it provides only a comparative (and hence static)
elaboration of two different causal models of policy formation. A dynamic
theory of change, a theory that explains the change in the causal texture of
policy formation in the case of FBR technology development over time, is
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 101
TABLE 3. FBR Policies during the 1960s and early 1970s
Sociological Political Political International
policy regime coalition systems
theory theory theory theory
Policy Similar actors in
actors all cases: science,
industry, utilities,
promotional state
agencies active;
consumer groups
inactive.
Policy Similarities of seg-
structures mented policy
arenas with high
barriers to partici-
pation; policy
invisible in the
public sphere.
Policy Similarity of the Theory only fully Different coalitions
processes policy instruments consistent with the between the major
only.a decision processes actors lead to
on FBR demon- different research
stration plants.a strategies and
cooperative
arrangements.
Policy In all cases, no Different outcomes Coalition forma-
outcomes legitimation prob- of FBR demonstra- tion influences the
lems of policy; tion projects are speed of develop-
effectiveness/effi- associated with ment in the three
ciency as criteria of different regime countries.
success. Side-ef- capacities in
fects of the tech- industrial
nology ignored. innovation.
a. Indicates a weak or indirect explanatory power of a theory.
lacking. That a dynamic theory of change is in no way incompatible with a
comparative approach is the note on which I wish to conclude.
Policy analysts can seek such a theory of change from at least three angles.
First, the tradition of classical macrosociology and historical comparative
analysis refers us to momentous changes in social structures and cleavages
which give rise to new social conflicts, collective decision making, and societal
integration. Such theories have the virtue of being very generalized and thus
allow for broad comparisons; alone, though, they are not specific enough to
explain the processes that generate transitions among causal structures of
policy formation. Second, the changing causal structure of policy making
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
102 International Organization
TABLE 4. FBR policies during the 1970s and early 1980s
Sociological Political Political International
policy regime coalition systems
theory theory theory theory
Policy Similar actors in all In hegemonic coun-
actors cases: old actors, tries, the FBR mobi-
new actors, such as lizes the foreign-
environmentalists policy community
and consumer around nuclear pro-
groups. liferation concerns.
Policy Where fluid, If a country is char-
structures permeable regime acterized by high se-
structures prevail, curity concerns and
new actors enter low energy depend-
the FBR decision ence, the FBR policy
arenas; elsewhere, arena will be opened
paralysis or to opponents.a
repression.
Policy The strength of A country’s energy
processes pro-FBR coalitions dependence and posi-
and the degree of tion in the inter-
state intervention- national economic
ism correlate with competition influ-
different regime ences its commit-
capacities. ment to FBRs.a
Policy FBR development A country’s inter-
outcomes outcomes (in terms national security and
of demonstration economic concern co-
plants) vary with varies with its
regime openness progress in the
and capacities. demonstration of
FBRs.a
a. Indicates a weak or indirect explanatory power of a theory.
can be reconstructed as a “punctuated equilibrium.”99 Crises disrupt estab-
lished policy patterns and unleash innovative trial-and-error processes that
produce new policies. Eventually, compatibility between new policies and
changed, but relatively inert, regime patterns is reestablished. Although crises
explain the pressure for change in policy formation, we need a theory to
understand why some institutional and policy innovations are retained and
transformed into stable patterns, while others fail and disappear. Finally, a
third approach directs us to reconstruct changes in policy formation as though
99. This argument is elaborated in S,tephen D. Krasner, “Review Article: Approaches to the
State. Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics,” Comparative Politics 16 (January
1984), pp. 241-44.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fast breeder development 103
it were a process of cognitive political learning. ’10 Here, not structural changes
of societal cleavages or institutional ruptures, but policy makers’ changing
cognitive capacities are considered to be the key variables affecting the causal
patterns of policy making. As the availability and certainty of information
and of capacities to process information change over time, policy making,
too, will change.
Which approach(es) explain the changing causal structure of policy making
most fully must be analyzed in studies that compare a sizable number of
changes in the patterning of policy over time. I suggest only one hypothesis
pertinent to the case of nuclear policy, and perhaps industrial and technology
policy making in advanced capitalism in general. Economic growth in the
post-World War II period was facilitated by three interrelated political in-
novations: comprehensive welfare states, economic interventionism by states
to support growth, and the recognition of labor unions in collective bargaining
and public policy making. Economic growth, efficiency, and positive-sum
distributive games within a world system shaped by U.S. hegemony were
the standards of rationality supported by most politically relevant groups in
the economic sphere. Although advanced capitalist countries have varied
remarkably with respect to their fabric of political institutions and dominant
coalitions, the relevance of such variations was limited as long as economic
and industrial policies could build on a societal consensus and stable under-
lying structures of interests. In this sense, similarities of the sociological base
and political trends were powerful determinants of policy making.
In the 1 970s, the complementarity of socioeconomic demands or require-
ments, on the one hand, with the political capacities to meet them, on the
other, eroded. One may attribute the present crisis to a failure of welfare
capitalism to guarantee economic growth (as neoliberals and some Marxists
do) or to the social consequences of growth itself.’0′ At the same time, the
international system governing the relationships among states has been de-
stabilized through the decline of American economic hegemony. In this sit-
uation, a realignment of social groups, the emergence of new demands, the
resistance against established policies, and the end of the welfare state com-
promise are factors that begin to press for policy change. But because political
regime structures are relatively inert, demands and requirements do not
directly translate into policy. Some regimes allow for more, or different,
innovation than others. This may account for the momentous explosion of
variation among industrial and economic policies in recent years. Societal
100. See Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Policy in Britain and Sweden (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1974), pp. 304-22.
101. A comparative analysis of the causes of societal stagnation in the 1970s and 1980s can
be found in Burkhart Lutz, Der kurze Traum immerwdhrender Prosperitdt (Frankfurt: Campus,
1984), especially chaps. 6, 7. Contrasting explanations of the crisis are compared in Herbert
Kitschelt, “Materiale Politisierung der Prodution: Gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen und in-
stitutionelle Innovationen in fortgeschrittenen kapitalistischen Demokratien,” Zeitschrift far
Soziologie 14, 4 (1985).
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
104 International Organization
strains and developmental problems thus provoke policy variations, but
“learning capacities” of polities are decisively shaped by their relatively inert
institutional fabric and location within an increasingly turbulent world system.
But whether, how, and based on which social formations, political institutions
and public policies will establish a new compatibility between society and
politics which will be disseminated to most advanced capitalist countries
(like the welfare state was after World War II) are issues for the future to
resolve.
This content downloaded from
������������107.182.72.224 on Sun, 13 Mar 2022 22:11:16 UTC�������������
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
- Contents
- Issue Table of Contents
p. [65]
p. 66
p. 67
p. 68
p. 69
p. 70
p. 71
p. 72
p. 73
p. 74
p. 75
p. 76
p. 77
p. 78
p. 79
p. 80
p. 81
p. 82
p. 83
p. 84
p. 85
p. 86
p. 87
p. 88
p. 89
p. 90
p. 91
p. 92
p. 93
p. 94
p. 95
p. 96
p. 97
p. 98
p. 99
p. 100
p. 101
p. 102
p. 103
p. 104
International Organization, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Winter, 1986) pp. 1-186
Front Matter [pp. ]
Reciprocity in International Relations [pp. 1-27]
Neomercantilism and International Economic Stability [pp. 29-42]
The Limitations of “Structural” Theories of Commercial Policy [pp. 43-64]
National Energy Policies
Four Theories of Public Policy Making and Fast Breeder Reactor Development [pp. 65-104]
The Irony of State Strength: Comparative Responses to the Oil Shocks in the 1970s [pp. 105-137]
Reexamining the “Obsolescing Bargain”: A Study of Canada’s National Energy Program [pp. 139-165]
Review
Anarchy, Egoism, and Third Images: The Evolution of Cooperation and International Relations [pp. 167-186]
Back Matter [pp. ]
Political Economic
Approaches
to Development
Political Economy
Spring 2020
What is Development?
How should we define development?
Quality of Life
Urbanization
Level of Manufacturing
GDP
Energy Consumption
Median Household Income
Education
Level of Technology
Why Does Development Matter
The absolute find themselves in conditions degraded by disease, illiteracy, malnutrition, and squalor denying them the basic human necessities.
Robert McNamara
½ the world population l (3 billion) live on less than $2.50/day
1.3 billion live on less than $1.25/day
5 stages
of Development
WW. Rostow
Is Development Inevitable?
Does development naturally follow:
Efficiency
Specialization
Surplus/Savings/Investment
Increased Productivity/Innovation
Trade
Consumption
Internal Barriers to Development
Inequality in income/wealth, especially when tied to racial, cultural, or other social divisions
Poor Infrastructure
Roads, Ports, Electricity, Water/Sanitation, Communication/Wireless
Quality of Financial Institutions
Availability of Savings, Credit, Investment
Poor Education System
Lack of Security
Lack of Natural Resources
Lack of Political Freedoms
Corruption/patronage
Market Failures
Geography/Bad Neighbors
External Barriers to Development
Multinational or Transnational Corporations (MNC/TNC) control of resources
Bad Deals
International Division of Labor
International Trade Patterns and Practices
WTO
Regional Trade Blocks
EU
TPP
NAFTA/UMCA
Institutional Change and Development
What institutions are needed to manage economic development?
Legal System
Pubic Works/Infrastructure
Public Health
Birth of new Institutions
Financial Sector
Banks
Stock Markets
Insurance Companies
Regulation
What is the Appropriate
Role of the State?
5 stages
of Development
WW. Rostow
Varieties of Paths to Development – Washington Consensus
Free Market/Free Trade
Low government borrowing. The idea was to discourage developing economies from having high fiscal deficits relative to their GDP.
Diversion of public spending from subsidies to important long-term growth supporting sectors like primary education, primary healthcare, and infrastructure.
Implementing tax reform policies to broaden the tax base and adopt moderate marginal tax rates.
Selecting interest rates that are determined by the market. These interest rates should be positive after taking inflation into account.
Encouraging competitive exchange rates through freely-floating currency exchange.
Adoption of free trade policies. This would result in the liberalization of imports, removing trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas.
Relaxing rules on foreign direct investment.
The privatization of state enterprises. Typically, in developing countries, these industries include railway, oil, and gas.
The eradication of regulations and policies that restrict competition or add unnecessary barriers to entry.
Development of property rights.
Varieties of Paths to Development –
Beijing Consensus
Free Market With Chinese Characteristics
Innovation – the government must actively innovate constantly tinkering with the institutions in the economy to respond to changing situations.
Pursuit of Dynamic Goals/Rejection of Per Capita GDP
Quality of Life (Human Development Index)
Balancing Rural/Urban Development
Balancing Regional Development
Balancing Economic and Social Development
Balancing Development Between Man and Nature
Balancing Domestic Development and Opening to the Outside World
Self Determination
Empowering develop countries to choose there own path to development and resist a one size fits all prescription for development.
Varieties of Paths to Development –
Export Led – Asian Tigers
Economic growth through the production and exports of production in which a county has a comparative advantage.
Diversity of the Economy
Degree of Government involvement in investment, subsidies, protectionism
Import Substitution – Latin America
Focus on developing products for domestic market instead of importing good.
Infant Industry
Denying the Economy the benefit of free trade and comparative advantage
Costly in subsidies and tariffs
High level of government involvement in business decisions
Varieties of Paths to Development –
Foreign Direct Investment
Encourage foreign companies to locate in a country to stimulate economic growth
Often in Extractive Industries
Fish or Teach to Fish Dilemma
Varieties of Paths to Development –
Foreign AId
Less Developed Counties receive economic assistance from more developed countries to grow their economy
Comes with Stings
Corruption
image1
image2
image3
image4
image5