1979 orr pol eco energyu.s. energy policy and the political economy of participation

U.S. Energy Policy and the Political Economy of ParticipationAuthor(s): David W. OrrSource: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Nov., 1979), pp. 1027-1056Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Southern Political ScienceAssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2129732 .

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U.S. Energy Policy and the

Political Economy of

Participation

DAVID W. ORR

ENERGY POLICY iS commonly regarded as a highly technical subject requiring expertise in nuclear physics and other recondite dis- ciplines. Accordingly, discussions of energy matters are commonly restricted to the technical aspects of its conversion and use. In contrast, the thesis of this essay is that energy policy most directly involves politics and ethics. In particular, much of the debate of the past several years about a national energy policy concerns which risks we as a society accept, which we avoid, who decides, and by what process. These issues, however, are seldom addressed explicitly.

In the essay that follows I will first briefly discuss what is meant by the energy transition. Second, I will examine three broad perspectives on energy policy, comparing the goals and assumptions of each. Third, I will sketch an argument for extending participation in both policy-making and policy implementation. Undoubt- edly, this is not the present state of affairs nor is it generally thought to be either feasible or desirable. Nevertheless, I will argue that greater public involvement in the energy sector would broaden the public interest, promote equity in the distribution of payoffs,

* I am indebted to John S. Nelson, Marvin S. Soroos, Edward J. Woodhouse, and Frank Munger for extensive comments on an earlier draft of this article.



1028 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL. 41, 1979

increase public accountability, and improve social resilience, but at the cost of a more technologically modest future. My underlying assumption is that the transition to inexhaustible energy sources over the next 50-75 years is problematic because of the unpre- cedented magnitude of the change required and the risks it entails. In this respect the energy "crisis" foreshadows other issues on the horizon concerning the allocation of scarce resources, adaptation to-or the attempt to expand-environmental limits, and the management of technology. Although these issues will confront us with extraordinary challenges, our institutions, political processes, and reigning philosophies were designed to deal with simpler and less portentous problems.

While the focus of this essay is confined to the relatively narrow issue of energy policy, I fully agree with Robert Dahl's recent assertion that it is time to reappraise thoroughly our system of govern- ance.' A good place to begin would be to consider the effects of technology on our theories of democracy. At present we have no theory describing the relationship between technology and the political system, nor do I offer one here. What I intend to do is to sketch an argument that the issues of energy policy and the technological choices entailed present more of a challenge to our political creativity than to our technical genius.

I

The present energy "crisis" involves the early stages of transition from a declining energy base to another, more abundant one. Pre- vious transitions from wood to coal or from coal to oil have taken earlier and simpler societies not less than half a century.2 The causes of the transitions include the depletion of one resource base and/or the development of the technological means to exploit another. Historical evidence indicates that the shift can involve great turmoil leading to social and political disintegration. We might reasonably assume that the greater the dependence on nonrenewable energy sources (e.g., fossil fuels) and the greater the demand for energy, the more difficult the change will be. The important variables include the amount of lead-time avaliable to create and

1 Robert A. Dahl, "On Removing Certain Impediments to Democracy in The States," Dissent 25 (Summer 1978), 322.

2Earl Cook, Man, Energy, Society (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1976), 164-187; John U. Nef, "An Early Energy Crisis and Its Con- sequences," Scientific American 234 (November, 1977), 140-151.



U.S. ENEfRCY POLICY 1029

disseminate energy conversion technologies, the degree of societal adaptability, and the quality of political leadership.

Briefly stated, the present energy crisis in the United States is attributable to the fact that the production of oil and natural gas has been declining since 1970 while consumption continues to rise. New discoveries-including North Slope Alaskan oil (amounting to less than two years of present consumption) -can delay but will not appreciably alter the trend.3 The use of coal is problematic because of its effects on human health, ecology, climate, and the high capital costs of converting it to more acceptable forms.4 Nu- clear power-once heralded as the means to produce electricity "too cheap to meter" is faced with rising capital and operating costs, unanswered (and possibly unanswerable) questions about safety, waste storage, vulnerability to terrorism, and its effects on the proliferation of nuclear weapons.5

Given the limits to each of the four major existing energy sources (oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium), it is clear that the energy base of the mid twenty-first century will be radically different from that of the present. As nonrenewable sources decline they must be replaced by renewable and inexhaustible energy sources including decentralized solar energy, breeder reactors, fusion, and solar power beamed to earth from space satellites. The rate at which nonrenewable fossil fuels decline will vary, with recoverable supplies of oil declining much more rapidly than those of coal. Neverthe. less the overall trend is clear, even if the timing is not. Because of the high capital costs of the renewable energy options, they are to a large extent mutually exclusive.6

3The analysis of oil and gas resources and reserves is explained in Resources *58 (March 1978). For varying estimates the reader may compare findings of the Workshop on Alternative Energy Strategies, Energy: Global Prospects 1985-2000 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977), with that presented by David A. Stockman, "The Wrong War? The Case against a National Energy Policy," The Public Interest 53 (FaIl, 1978), 3-44.

4 John Harte and Alan Jassby, "Energy Technologies and Natural Environ- ments: The Search for Compatibility," in Annual Review of Energy, Voluiie 3, ed. Jack M. Hollander (Palo Alto: Annual Review, Inc., 1978), 111-117.

s For contrasting views see Irvin C. Bupp and Jean-Claude Derian,, Light- water. How the Nuclear Dream Dissolved (New York: Basic Books, 1978); Walter C. Patterson, Nuclear Power (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1976); Spur- geon M. Keeny, et. al., Nuclear Power: Issues and Choices (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1977).

6 See the discussion by M. H. Ross and R. H. Williams, Energy and Economic Growth. U. S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee. (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1977), 52-57.




The present energy transition is qualitatively different from earlier ones in at least three ways. First, we are much more dependent on energy than were earlier societies so that the prospect of energy shortages strikes at the very foundation of technologically advanced countries. Second, energy policy is made in a context of high interdependence, in which the effects of national decisions spill across political, economic, and ecological boundaries. Third, ours will be the first attempt to manage politically the transition from one energy base to another. Prospects for success, therefore, are much more dependent upon political processes and bureaucratic structures than ever before.

It

At the risk of some distortion, we can distinguish three dominant perspectives in the current debate over U.S. energy policy.

The Supply Perspective

The first of these, the supply argument, holds that we must produce our way out of the crisis, because, "The country that runs on energy can't afford to run short." The energy crisis is defined as a problem of assuring an increasing supply of cheap energy and not one of scarcity, since, "The earth's remaining supplies of known petroleum are enormous and still growing. Energy demand is further presumed to be highly inelastic and tightly linked to eco-- nomic growth. The alternative to continually increasing energy supply is in Hans Bethe's words,, "unemployment and recession, if not worse."8 Conservation would not only reduce the standard of living, it would stall efforts to alleviate poverty and clean up the environment.9 In this view government intervention on the demand side of the energy equation would abridge fundamental rights and undermine the free enterprise system.

For the advocates of the supply position, the principle actors in

7Richard B. Mancke, The Failure of U. S. Energy Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 11; Stockman, "Wrong War," 10-19.

8Hans Bethe, "The necessity of Fission Power," Scientific American 234 (January, 1976), 31.

9 Chase Manhattan Bank, Energy Outlook in the United States to 1985 (New York, 1972). M. A. Wright (Chairman and Chief Executive, Exxon), "The Energy Future," Address at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (May 16, 1975).



U.S. ENERGY POLICY 1031

energy policy are, in order of importance, corporations, government officials, and university experts. This group corresponds to the elite that has controlled energy policy in the recent past and which has been described by one analyst as a "small, stable, and closed circle of . . . petroleum, or coal, or oil, or nuclear men . . . having a strong supply orientation, a common faith in technology, and an 'engineering mentality.' "10 The exclusion of the public from policy making is an extension of the belief that citizens cannot un- derstand complex issues. When the public does get involved, it will

usually result in a misallocation of resources" because the public ". . . simply does not have the information to relate perception to reality.""'

The goal for the advocates of this perspective is to achieve an inexhaustible supply of cheap energy based initially on increasing current production of fossil fuels and eventually on the breeder reactor and nuclear fusion. If successful, we could ". . . make a direct attack on entropy . .. or even reach for the alchemist's dream of elemental transmutation."'12 If we fail, the future they depict differs in no appreciable way from that commonly attributed to "neo-malthusians." The goal, therefore, is so vital that it requires us to court risks of technological catastrophes, the effects of which would be comparable to what Bethe describes as "minor wars."18 This result presents us with a paradox. On the one hand, technologically advanced societies are portrayed as so inflexible that any levelling or reduction in energy consumption would cause disaster. On the other hand, these same societies are portrayed as flexible enough to withstand the acknowledged certainty of periodic catastrophes, including large oil spills, nuclear melt-downs, liquid natural gas explosions and global climate change.'4

The Conservation Perspective A second view of the energy crisis has been described in the

10 Leon Lindberg, "Comparing Energy Policies," in Leon Lindberg, ed., The Energy Syndrome (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1977) 334.

1" Chauncey Starr, Richard Rudman, Chris Whipple, "Philosophical Basis for Risk Analysis," in Annual Review of Energy, Volume 1, ed. Jack M. Hollander, (Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews, Inc., 1976), 635.

12 Sterling Brubaker, In Command of Tomorrow (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 5.

13 Bethe, "Necessity," 31. 14 Herman Kahn, William Brown, Leon Martel, The Next 200 Years (New

York: William Morrow Co., 1976), 163-180.




"technical fix" scenario of the Ford Foundation's Energy Policy Project and later in the Carter Administration's National Energy Plan (NEP) .15 The key proposition is that the United States wastes from 30-50 percent of its total energy budget.'6 Sweden, by contrast, uses half as much energy per capita as the United States, and Switzerland only a third as much.'7 Conservation, in the words of the NEP, is "the cleanest and cheapest source of new energy" and is essential if we are to avoid the hazards of dependence on foreign sources of energy and the possibility of energy wars.

The principal assumption of those ermphasizing conservation is that the historic tie between energy consumption and economic growth can be de-coupled, which need not exact a penalty in reduced economic growth.'8 Marc Ross and Robert Williams, for instance, argue that we can reach zero energy growth by 1985 while main- taining comfortable rates of economic growth thereafter.'9 An- other recent study concluded, "It will be technically feasible in 2010 to use roughly a total amnount of energy as low as that used today and still provide a higher level of amenities, even with a total population increasing 35%."20 The NEP was not as optimistic, but nevertheless aimed to maintain high rates of economic growth while reducing the annual increase in energy demand to less than two percent. Despite varying estimates about the price elasticity of energy demand, each of these studies assumes that an increase in the price of energy combined with the removal of institutional

15 Ford Foundation Energy Policy Project, A Time to Choose (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1974); Executive Office of the President, The National Energy Plan (Washington, D. C.: 1977).

16 Robert Socolow, "The Coming Age of Conservation," in Annual Review of Energy, Volume 2, ed. Jack M. Hollander (Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews, Inc., 1977), 239-289; also Denis Hayes, Rays of Hope (New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1977), 77-88.

17 Lee Schipper and Allan J. Lichtenberg, "Efficient Energy Use and Well- Being: The Swedish Example," Science 194 (3 December, 1976), 1001-1013.

18 See for example, "Energy Trends of Interest," Institute for Energy Analy- sis News, Oak Ridge Institute for Energy Analysis (June, 1978); Also Lee Schipper, "Raising the Productivity of Energy Utilization," in Annual Review of Energy, 1976, 455-517.

19 M. H. Ross and R. H. Williams, Energy and Economic Growth, 2. 20 Demand and Conservation Panel for the Committee on Nuclear and Al-

ternative Energy Systems, "U. S. Energy Demand: Some Low Energy Futures," Science 200 (14 April, 1978), 151; see also Jobn S. Steinhart, A Low Energy Scenario For the United States: 1975-2050, Report 83, (Madison, WI: Institute for Envirorunental Studies, 1977).




barriers will reduce energy demand and lead to the emergence of an energy efficient and more labor intensive economy.

In contrast to the emphasis on corporate initiatives in the first approach, the catalyst for energy efficiency is the federal government. In the words of the NEP, "The energy problem can be effectively addressed only by a government that accepts responsibility for dealing with it comprehensively."21 Government intervention is necessary to ensure that energy is priced at its replacement level; to provide consumer incentives for conservation (e.g., tax credits, extension programs, low interest loans); and to conduct research on energy technologies not otherwise developed in the private sector. The conservation approach is epitomized by the creation of a ten billion dollar Department of Energy and a growing body of federal energy efficiency standards in transportation, residential, and industrial sectors.22

The goal of conservation is that of an energy-efficient society in the near term, to allow time to build a more secure energy base for the long term.23 To this end, it is essential to eliminate obvious

21 The National Energy Plan, 26. 22Particularly in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975) and the

Energy Conservation and Production Act (1976). 23 Lee Schipper, in "Raising thc Productivity of Energy," 457, for example,

defines conservation as a strategy of adjusting and optimizing energy to reduce energy output (or well-being) while holding constant or reducing total costs of providing the output from these systems. Estimates of efficiency, however, vary according to the standard used to measure it. Previous standards of energy efficiency were based on the first law of thermodynamics which gives a ratio of the total energy input or work or heat output. Since energy can neither be created nor destroyed this law requires that we account for the total energy that is converted into work or heat and that which is dissipated as waste. Hence,

energy converted to usable form

total energy input.

The Amnerican Physical Society in 1975 recommended that efficiency standards ought, however, to be based on the Second law of thermodynamics which holds that energy, while not destroyed, flows in only one direction and cannot be recycled without incurring a higher energy cost than that in the energy recov- ered. Second law efficiency standards would encourage the user to match energy in quantity and quality with the quantity and quality needed to per- form a certain task. Hence,

minim-ium energy required by 2nd law

energy actually consumed.




sources of waste and to utilize technical innovations and price incentives to maximize the productivity of energy. Adoption of the conservation ethic, however, entails no sweeping change either in lifestyles beyond those commonly described as "cosmetic;"24 or in the goal of economic growth.25 The technological goals of the conservation approach evidenced by the Department of Energy's research and development expenditures do not differ much from those of the first perspective. Between 1978 and 2000 they propose a combination of conservation and greater reliance on nuclear power and coal. Beyond 2000, they propose to phase in more exotic technologies, including coal gasification, the breeder reactor, and nuclear fusion.

In addition to the risks of economic dislocation caused by interruption of energy supplies, proponents of conservation warn of the impending exhaustion of oil reserves, mounting balance-of-payments problems, and the possibility of energy wars. President Carter has also warned that failure to conserve will lead to ". . . an economic, social, and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions."26

It is difficult to argue against the need for conservation and increased efficiency, but it is entirely possible that conservation may be too little, too late. Given the historic relationship between energy use and GNP, we must admit the possibility that the prospect of zero energy growth could lead to severe economic hardships.27 Even if one assumes that supplies will be sufficient to meet demand for the next two decades, rising prices could still cause massive hardships. In short, the transition to a more energy efficient society could be far more traumatic and uncertain than President Carter and conservation enthusiasts suggest.

The Energetics Perspective

Drawing from a diverse array of thinkers, we can outline a third perspective which asserts a causal relationship between the energy basis of a society and its social, political, and economic structures. The energy crisis, in this view, is more than a problem of inadequate supply or inefficiency, it is a fundamental social and cultural crisis.

24 See Socolow, "The Coming Age," 256-272. 25 National Energy Plan, ix. 26New York Times, (November 11, 1977). 27 Earl T. Hayes reaches this dismal conclusion in "Energy Resources Avail-

able to the United States, 1885-2000," Science 203 (19 January, 1979), 233- 239.




The "problem" of energy is one of creating an energy supply system consistent with democratic values and with the physical laws gov- erning energy.

The basic premise of the third perspective-that society is subject to the laws of thermodynamics-dates at least to the work of the British chemist turned economist, Frederick Soddy. Writing in 1922, Soddy argued that energy flows were causally linked to social and economic development.28 Fred Cottrell expanded this theme in his Energy and Society, arguing, "The energy available to man limits what he can do and influences what he will do."29 He developed the idea that the control of surplus or net energy is the key to understanding social stratification and cultural evolution. In- creased energy use also creates costs including the concentration of political power, the consequent decline of democracy, and a greater possibility of international conflict.30 Similar themes appear in the work of anthropologist Leslie White, who argued in an essay in 1949 that cultural evolution depends upon energy use per capita and the efficiency with which a society harnesses it. Although expanding energy use motivates cultural development, according to White, it again leads to the concentration of political power and international conflict.31

Energy determinism is even more pronounced in the work of Howard Odum, who maintains that the source of energy and its rate of flow determine societal values and the superstructure of economic and political institutions.32 Societies-like natural systems -can be mapped as energy flows and ought to be similarly pat- terned to stress decentralization, diversity, and redundancy. Both natural and social systems develop until their "maintenance and

28 Frederick Soddy, Cartesian Economics (London: Hendersons, 1922); for a brief review of Soddy and other "global" theorists, see Laura Nader and Stephen Beckerman, "Energy as it relates to the Quality and Style of Life" in Annual Review of Energy, 1978, 3-10.

29Fred Cottrell, Energy and Society (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955), 2. 30 Ibid., 227-240; 267. 31 Leslie A. White, "Energy and the Evolution of Culture," in The Science ot

Culture, ed. Leslie White, (New York: Grove Press, 1949), 388. 32 Howard T. Odum, Environment, Power, and Society (New York: Wiley-

Interscience, 1971), 34. See also Charles J. Ryan, "The Choices in the Next Energy and Social Revolution," paper presented to the 1977 Conference on Growth Policy, The Woodlands, Texas, October 1977); and Richard Newbold Adams, Energy and Structure (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975), 279-315.



1036 THE JOURNAL OF POLMIICS, VOL. 41, 1979

organizational costs equal their energy budgets."33 Beyond this point, all systems decline. Thus in nature and in human affairs, energy efficiency is related to stability and survival. A second and related assumption is that energy conversion is limited by the second law of thermodynamics. To speed the pace of economic development is to hasten the creation of entropy or social disorder. In this view, the appropriate question is not whether to strive for a steady state, but how best to prolong a declining one.34

Amory Lovins' Soft Energy Paths also reflects the energetics approach, while deemphasizing its assumption of determinism. Along with the first two perspectives Lovins states that government must initiate an appropriate energy policy, but then argues somewhat ambiguously, for widespread public involvement in policy making. Thus: "Some action by central and local government is necessary to get the ball rolling, but then its mostly downhill." Elsewhere he states, "Ordinary people are qualified and responsible to make these energy policy choices . . . through the democratic political process."35

The goal for Lovins and others is the creation of a solar-based, decentralized, egalitarian, and participatory society along lines proposed by Jefferson, Kropotkin, and E. F. Schumacher. Energy policy is regarded as a lever to move society toward a more sustainable, if less extravagant, basis while enhancing equity and participation.

Despite the obvious appeal of the soft path, Lovins is not describing a political process, but an economic one triggered by decisions of the central government, which is not policy making as normally defined, but rather economic behavior and technological diffusion with political implications. He has to some degree de- politicized energy policy by consigning it to the realm of consumer choice. Whether this process will catalyze substantial democratiza- tion beyond the energy sector as claimed depends on who pro- duces, distributes, and owns soft technologies, and on the degree to which energy flows are causally linked to political structures and behavior. Lovins may be entirely correct in concluding that the hard path will lead to economic, ecological, and social disaster, but

33Adams, Energy and Structure, 231. 34 See, for example, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the

Economic Process (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), 292- 315.

35Amory B. Lovins, Soft Energy Paths (Cambridge, Mass.; Ballinger, 1977), 152; also Lovins, "Cost-Risk-Benefits Assessments in Energy Policy," George Washington Law Review 45 (August 1,977), 941-943.




it does not automatically follow that the soft path will be a Jeffer- sonian utopia except by comparison.

In any event we are left to wonder how the choice of the soft path might be made. Will the elite that dominates energy policy accept a course of action that would jeopardize its position? Al- ternatively, would the public, given a choice between hard and soft paths, choose the latter? The advertised virtues of the soft path, including self-reliance, voluntary simplicity, ecological modesty, and neighborliness have not been tested in either the political arena or in the marketplace, Jerry Brown and E. F. Schumacher notwith- standing.

lI

Each of the three positions offers different diagnoses of the crisis and different prescriptions for its resolution, as suggested in figure one. But advocates of each view agree that the situation is un- precedented for at least five reasons: (1) the great dependence of the United States on the uninterrupted flow of cheap energy; (2) the foreseeable exhaustion of easily exploitable supplies of oil and natural gas; (3) the long lead-time necessary to create a new energy base; (4) the likely irreversibility of the choices; and (5) the large-scale risks entailed in the decision.

There are, however, two areas of substantial disagreement. The first concems the type and extent of risk involved in energy policy. The proponents of the supply perspective are peroccupied with economic risks caused by an interruption in energy supply. Ad- vocates of the second approach have a longer list which includes, in addition to economic disruption, the problems of weapons proliferation and excessive dependence on foreign oil suppliers. From the energetics perspective, the dominant risks are those of resource exhaustion, ecological damage, climate change, and technological accidents such as oil spills, nuclear melt-downs, and liquid natural gas explosions. It would be presumptuous and beyond the scope of this paper to say how these risks ought to be weighed, but clearly we do not have the option of a risk free energy policy.

This is not to say, however, that all possible risks ought to be regarded as equally plausible. A wise choice in these circumstances will require both an open, unbiased decision process and a calculus that enables us to distinguish risks to survival from those to particular interests or to various social patterns. We must also



1038 TH JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL. 41, 1979

FIGuRE 1

1 II III Supply Conservation Energetics

Definition of inadequate energy waste energy as cultural- problem supply social problem

Assumptions energy growth energy growth energy determinism continued slowed entropic limits to

(energy-economic (energy-economic energy conservatio growth linked) growth can be end of cheap

decoupled) energy

Primary energy corpora- government public Actors tions

(Laissez Faire) (Leviathan) (Jeffersonian)

Goal/values inexhaustible near term: decentralized cheap energy efficiency solar based society

no value change long term: radical value inexhaustible change supply

small value change

Risks to economic disrup- balance of pay- technological be avoided tion ments, depen- accidents

dence, energy resource exhaustion wars climate change

Ultimate breeder/fusion conservation decentralized- Energy Source: technology- solar, wind

breeder/fusion biomass

learn to weigh risks with allowance for the unknown, in both particular and aggregate dimensions. We currently concentrate on the risk potential from individual energy facilities, while ignoring the accumulation of risk from all sources. Presumably we might prefer to disperse some risks geographically or temporally in order to diffuse the total risk burden.38

Finally, we need a systematic way to identify, assess, and imple- ment alternatives to risk-prone technologies before foreclosing op-

36David W. Orr, "Catastrophe and Social Order," Human Ecology 7 (March, 1979), 41-52; See also William W. Lowrance, Of Acceptable Risk: Science and the Determination of Safety (Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1976).




tions that hindsight may show were superior. For example, recent studies demonstrating the feasibility and desirability of solar power -including those by the Office of Technology Assessment, the state of California, and the Department of Energy-come only after the United States has sunk over 100 billion dollars into the nuclear option, including some 17 to 24 billion dollars in federal research funds and subsidies.37 In contrast, solar power has lagged partly because it has had to compete with fuels priced below their replacement costs and because it has lacked an organized, highly-funded interest group pushing its adoption despite the conclusion of the Paley Commission in 1952 that solar power represented a viable, large-scale source of energy that could meet as much as 25 percent of U.S. energy demand by 1977.38 Typically, the identification of policy alternatives is dominated by well-intrenched interests with financial or professional stakes in the outcome so that debate is restricted to what is narrowly practical.

A second-and for our purposes more important-point of disagreement among the three perspectives concerns differences over what can be broadly described as the decision-making process. Ad- vocates of the first perspective favor a corporate dominated approach to energy policy. Freed from excessive government restraints the energy market will tend toward an optimal balance between supply and demand. The conservation approach, in contrast, calls for a larger government role in the energy sector in order to control prices, manage research, limit demand, and protect long term societal interests. Greater government control is regarded as essential to remedy deficiencies of imperfect markets and extend control into areas where markets are inoperative or inappropriate. Advocates of the third perspective propose changes that would alter the policy process in order to enhance public involvement. From their perspective, utilization of diffuse solar energy promotes democracy because it is not easily monopolized. In this view Democracy is in- compatible with certain energy technologies that are large-scale,

37 Office of Technology Assessment, Application of Solar Technology to Today's Energy Needs (Washington, D. C., 1978); The SolarCal Staff, "Towards a Solar California" (1978), mimeo; U. S. Department of Energy, Distributed Energy Systems in California's Future (Washington, D. C., 1978); Council on Environmental Quality, The Good News about Energy (Washing- ton: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1979).

38 William Paley, Resources for Freedom: Foundation for Growth and Security (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1952).



1040 TH JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL. 41, 1979

complex, capital-intensive, risk-prone, environmentally destructive, and subject to sabotage and terrorism.39

The idea that technology has anything to do with democracy is itself an interesting, if not altogether novel hypothesis. But the argument also suggests that democratic participation is necessary to preserve a margin of error between expanding technological capabilities and environmental carrying capacity. This view stands in marked contrast to previous theories of democracy which were based on the belief that participation was good for the citizen or vaguely related to the health of the polity, but not important in any more functional way.

To be taken seriously, this argument must show that participation either raises the quality of public decisions or minimizes the possibility of very bad ones, or both. Although advocates of energetics perspective make no explicit case to this effect, I will argue that both are supportable if not definitive conclusions. First, however, we will consider three arguments customarily made against participatory democracy.

The Case against Participation

The first of these arguments-based largely on studies of voting behavior-shows that a high percentage of the public typically does not and presumably will not participate in electoral politics. The turnout for presidential elections seldom exceeds 60 percent, and the percentage drops sharply for state and local elections. But evidence drawn from voting studies is inconclusive. In contrast to the interpretation that the public is indifferent to politics, one might plausibly explain low turnout and non-participation as a function of (1) the lack of opportunity for meaningful involvement; (2) the lack of genuine choice; (3) the understandable belief that the political system cannot solve problems anyway; (4) the unequal distribution of wealth and consequent feelings of "low efficacy"; or (5) some combination of the four.

Moreover, studies of participation understate the extent and intensity of political involvement by generally excluding acts such as

39 These points are made forcefully by Lovins, Soft Energy Paths, 147-159. The civil implications of nuclear power are described by Russel W. Ayres, "Policing Plutonium: The Civil Liberties Fallout," Harvard Civil Rights- Civil Liberties Law Review 10( 1975), 369-443.




protest and demonstration which are not as easy to observe and measure as acts of voting.40 The public-interest movement mani- fested in activism on civil rights, peace, consumerism, environmental quality, women's liberation and nuclear safety resulted from large numbers of people acting outside the normal political channels but with large effect on voting patterns and government policy. In each case, awareness of important and otherwise neglected problems was heightened, and public policy was often markedly improved in ways that are not apparent if we concentrate on voting behavior alone.

A second argument against participation is that greater participation would lead to inefficiency and chaos. According to some pluralists, not only does a sizeable majority of the public abstain from political activity but this condition is itself a necessary requi- site of democratic stability. Mass involvement would signal not only the breakdown of consensus, but would also overburden the machinery of government with excessive demands. Further, it would lower the equality of public decisions because the masses lack the knowledge essential for informed opinions on most issues. Public participation therefore, is mediated through organized interest groups pursuing their own self-interest.

Samuel Huntington has taken the proposition further to argue that democracy is inherently unstable and leads to the "breakdown of traditional means of social control, a delegitimation of political and other forms of authority, and an overload of demands on government, exceeding its capacity to respond."41 The solution Hunt- ington proposes involves the expansion of central authority and the consequent reduction of citizen participation. For very different reasons, Robert Heilbroner and William Ophuls reach more drastic conclusions which call for the creation of authoritarian govern- ments to resolve the coming crisis of scarcity.42 Likewise, others, including Physicist Alvin Weinberg, propose "Faustian bargains"

40 See the discussion by William R. Schonfield, "The Meaning of Democratic Participation," World Politics 28 (October, 1975), 143.

41 Michel J. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 8; see also Samuel P. Huntington, "Postindustrial Politics: How Benign Will It Be?" Compara- tive Politics 6 (January, 1974), 163-192.

42 For discussion of this view see David W. Orr and Stuart Hill, "Leviathan, the Open Society, and the Crisis of Ecology," The Western Political Quarterly 31 (December, 1978), 457-469.




between society and scientists to resolve energy and resource problems.43

The pluralist assumption that democracy can work only as long as a large majority of citizens remains apathetic and dependent upon elites is ironic to say the least. More important, elitist theories of democracy rest on a model of "rational" behavior which not only suffers from normative anemia, but may be useful as a description only under particular conditions which are seldom specified." From such assumptions it is a small step for political scientists to become apologists for the status quo and for a system that, in one critic's words, entails "elite domination of the major issues salient to elites, severe limitations on protest group activity, and manipulation of the terms on which issues arise and are proc- essed."45 Among the casualties of the pluralist theory are the concept of the politically active citizen and the notion of a transcendent public interest as something other than a haphazard outcome of collective greed.

Finally, the belief that the survival of democratic government requires greater reliance on elites strikes a curious note in the wake of recent exhibits of their ineptitude or worse in the Vietnam War, Watergate, a medly of corporate scandals, Koreagate, the ongoing debacle of uncontrolled inflation, Three Mile Island, and the energy crisis itself. It is hard to disagree with Walter Dean Burnham's assertion that the present distrust of elites-the "democratic dis- temper" that Huntington and others so detest-is in very large part

" . the natural outgrowth of decisions made by activist elites in domestic and international arenas and not by predatory publics."46

A third and related argument against extending participation is that many policy issues-especially those concerning technology- are too complex for the public. Issues involving highly technical tradeoffs require the specialized knowledge of policy analysts, scientists, and technologists so that democracy and expertise work at

43 Alvin M. Weinberg, "Social Institutions and Nuclear Energy," Science 177 (7 July, 1972), 27-34.

44 For critiques see, for example, Jack L. Walker, "A Critique of the Elitist Theory of Democracy," American Political Science Review 60 (June, 1966), 285-295; also C. B. Macpherson, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 77-92.

45 Michael Lipsky, "Introduction," in Murray Edelman, Political Language (New York: Academic Press, 1977), xviii.

46Walter Dean Bumham, "Reflections on the Crisis of Democracy in the United States," Trialogue (Fall, 1976), 8.




cross purposes. There can be no question about the need for greater expertise in the policy-making process. The problem is how to strike and maintain a balance between public control and the need for specialized knowledge. The danger of overemphasiz- ing the latter is that expertise leads to the eventual expulsion of the nonexpert citizen from the policy arena, since, in Robert Dahl's words, "Decisions as to means can also determine ends. Democracy only for general ends and meritocracy for means will soon become meritocracy for both means and ends.",, Computer expert Joseph Weizenbaum is even more blunt in arguing that computerized expertise leads to ". . . authoritarianism based on expertise . . . pressed into the service of rationalizing, supporting, and sustaining the most conservative, indeed reactionary, ideological components of the current zeitgeist."48

Moreover, in many cases the nature of the issue is unclear so that it is debatable which experts are relevant. For example, nuclear power is generally regarded as the proper domain of the physicist. If, however, the fundamental issues in this instance are those of ethics, persons so trained ought to be given priority in the policy debate. In either case, once having assigned a problem by default or otherwise to a set of experts the discussion thereafter is strongly influenced by their particular disciplinary and methodological biases. Economists' use of cost-benefit analysis, for example, may cause distortions because of its inability to deal with incommensur- able values, soft variables, holistic-ecological issues, questions of justice, and the interests of future generations.49 In such cases the

47Dahl, "On Removing Certain Impediments," 323. 48 Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason (San Francisco:

W. H. Freeman Co., 1976), 250. 49 Laurence Tribe, for example, has argued that cost-benefit analysis cannot

deal with ". . . three categories of values and interests . . . those too widely diffused over space (or too incrementally affected over time) to be strongly championed by any single client of a policy analysis; those associated only with persons not yet existing (future generations); and those not associatcd with persons at all (for example, the rights of wild animals)." Laurence H. Tribe, "Policy Science: Analysis or Ideology?" Phllosophy and Public Affairs 2 (Fall, 1972), 102; Peter Junger's critique of cost-benefit analysis applied to issues of water pollution is even more comprehensive and damning. Peter D. Junger, "A Recipe for Bad Water: Welfare Economics and Nuisance Law Mixed Well," Case Western Reserve Law Review 27 (Fall, 1976), 3-163; see also Eric Ashby, Reconciling Man with the Environment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978), 29-57; Ida Hoos, Systems Analysis in Public Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Amory B. Lovins, "Cost- Risk-Benefit Assessments."



1044 THE JOXRNAL OF POLITICS, VOL. 41, 1979

demand for rigor can lead to rigor mortis, and the avoidance of hard choices and human dilemmas in the vain hope that technique can absolve us from the responsibility of decision. Taken to its extreme, the dominance of expertise represents the triumph of method over politics and a means of avoiding public debate by disguising critical decisions beneath the rhetoric of necessity and economic efficiency.

Finally, even the claim to expertise in social policy is contest- able.50 Experts can improve the quality of public choices by gather- ing information, identifying conceptual problems, and by describing the probable consequences of particular policies. But many issues concern value choices for which there are no experts. In these circumstances the attempt of the "value neutral" policy analyst to imitate the physical sciences by compulsive quantification and the use of complex models represents, in Almond and Genco's words, a "historical deviation, a flirtation with mistaken metaphors" that assumes a Newtonian clockwork social universe.5'

The pluralist critique of participation shares with policy analysis and the supply perspective a limited and distorted view of human behavior. Both the model of economic man and its derivative- the rational voter-reduce the citizen to an apathetic, self-indulgent, dull-witted, incompetent. Not only does this assumption tend to promote the very behavior that it purports only to describe, but in so doing serves as a further justification for even more elite control. Elites-whether energy company executives, technical experts, pluralist leaders, or policy analysts-thus have a vested interest of sorts in mass dependence and incompetence. The supply perspective, pluralism, and policy analysis also share the assumption that political questions can be transmuted into rational decisions ana- logous to market choices. But the public cannot register a prefer- ence for options not offered in the market, nor can there be a purely rational basis for value choices.52

50 Alasdair MacIntyre, "Ideology, Social Science, and Revolution," Compara- tive Politics 5 (April 1973), 334-335; see also the provocative discussion by Paul Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society (London: NLB Publishers, 1978), 96-107.

51 Gabriel A. Almond and Stephen J. Genco, "Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics," World Politics 29 (July, 1977), 522.

52 See the discussion of values in Richard J. Bernstein, The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976), 45-54.




FIGuRE 2

PARTICIPATION

High Low

elite imposed .. < Lovins' solar society;

Model traditional societies

Public rejects Present U. S., soft path Supply Per-

Faustian Bargains spective

The Case for Participation

Classical theorists of democracy generally argued that participation contributed to the moral development and independence of the citizen as well as to the integration of the political community, but not necessarily to the enhancement of public policy. In this sec- tion we will consider four arguments supporting greater public involvement as a means to improve the quality of energy policy. In the first three arguments participation implies involvement in policy- making in ways ranging from merely improving public access to information, to means that channel information about public attitudes to appropriate authorities, to a genuine sharing of power. As Burnham describes, participation in this sense implies

... the emergence of mass demands on policy elites . . . with the end in view .of relegitimating the political system by giving people an authentic share in shaping their own lives and destinies. [It also implies the] recasting of the political structure itself, the curbing of the power of 'technetronic' elites both official and private to overwhelm the lives of non-elites and at some point coming to terms with the need to remold the political economy along more genuinely participatory lines.53

The fourth argument derived from the energetics perspective holds that participation should also mean widespread public involvement in policy implementation through the decentralization of the energy production system. Although the arguments overlap, it is important to note, as suggested in Figure 2, that participation in the former sense does not automatically lead to the acceptance of

53Walter Dean Burnham, "Reflections," 8.




soft, participatory technologies since one can imagine an authoritarian or elite-imposed solar society. The point is that greater participation in either sense need not presume the other.

The case for increasing participation in both ways can be stated as four overlapping and partially asymmetrical propositions. The first with antecedents in the work of John Stuart Mill, maintains that participation alters the outlook and behavior of the participant and encourages awareness of the wider public interest. Participa- tion then presumably increases the sense of political "efficacy," raises the level of knowledge about public affairs, expands the sense of community, and helps the individual relate private to public needs.54

Empirical evidence about the effects of greater public involvement in energy policy, however, is at best only suggestive. Aside from anti-nuclear or pro-solar demonstrations, there is only a hand- ful of cases-mostly European-in which the public has been drawn into the policy process in any form. In most of these cases, participation broadened the concerns normally associated with energy policy and was often expressed as opposition to nuclear energy. Regardless of the pros and cons of the nuclear debate, public-interest groups consistently dissented from the view that the issue of energy supply ought to override other elements of the public interest. Whether these concerns are "rational" or whether they accurately reflect the public interest need not trouble us. The point is simply that participation has tended to widen the concept of public interest in the energy sector.

The best known example is the case of Sweden where in January, 1974, the government initiated a campaign of study groups organized by political parties, labor unions, and religious groups to debate issues relating to nuclear power.55 The use of such groups in Sweden had roots extending back into the nineteenth century and had been originally devised as a method to encourage democratic participation. In the debate over nuclear power, the focus of the

54Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 110.

55 Dorothy Nelkin and Michael Pollak, "The Politics of Participation and the Nuclear Debate in Sweden, The Netherlands, and Austria," Public Policy 25 (Summer 1977), 333-357; see also the discussion of participation in nuclear politics in the U. S. by Nelkin and Susan Fallows, "The Evolution of the Nu- clear Debate" in Annual Review of Energy, 1978, 275-312; Mans Lonroth, "Swedish Energy Policy: Technology in the Political Process" in The Energy Syndrome, 255-284.




study groups quickly expanded to include issues such as the opti- mum level of energy demand, a comparison of different energy sources, and questions of safety. Although the government had initiated the study groups as a means to manipulate public opinion in order to develop support for its nuclear program, these groups tended to express strong reservations about nuclear energy. In- fluenced by this reaction, the government in March of 1975 presented an energy policy to the parliament that reduced the nuclear component, and proposed a decrease in the energy growth rate to two percent between 1975 and 1985, and a zero growth rate after 1990. In order to achieve these goals the government proposed higher taxes on energy, grants for retrofitting, and a large research and development program in alternative sources. Subsequently, energy issues-particularly nuclear power-played some (if unde- termined) role in the defeat of the Palme government.

Conclusions from the Swedish case are limited by the fact that the process lasted for only one year and included only an estimated 80,000 (or about one percent) of the population. Moreover, the study group technique was conducted in a relatively small, homo- geneous society with no major cleavages and depended upon government initiation and response since the groups themselves had no inherent power. Still, participation affected public attitudes enough to dislodge government policy from its predominately high-technology, supply orientation. In Lindberg's words: "Alternative policy criteria penetrated policy debate at the highest levels; the mass public has been mobilized and made more aware of the larger stakes of energy policy; and decisionmaking at the bureaucratic-technocratic levels has been made permeable to new actors and new perception of the problem."56

In other European cases, including the citizens' initiative movement in Germany and the November, 1978, Austrian referendum on nuclear energy, public involvement led to somewhat similar results -though by different processes. The rapid growth of anti-nuclear attitudes through locally organized citizens' initiatives in West Germany is particularly striking.57 Despite having different goals, most German groups have tended to express highly informed and

56Leon Lindberg, "Comparing Energy Policies: Policy Implications," in The Energy Syndrome, 255-284.

57 Volkmer Lauber, "A Role for Citizens in Environmental Policy: The United States, France, and Germany," (paper presented at the Third Capon Springs Conference, Arlington, VA., September 13-15, 1978), 11-14.




militant opposition to nuclear power. Although the membership of these groups exceeds that of all German political parties combined, they have not been given formal standing by the government so that is it unclear what impact they will have on West German energy policy. Similarly in the Austrian referendum of November, 1978, slightly more than half (50.5 percent) voted against nuclear power.58 As with referenda on nuclear power in the United States in 1976 and 1978, however, the outcome was the result of the interplay of nuclear opposition, economic issues, and politics.

On the basis of the limited evidence available, one can draw only suggestive conclusions about the effects of participation. In the Swedish case, the public was involved in a relatively coherent examination of the issues of energy policy within the context of small discussion groups. In the Austrian case and in state referenda in the United States, the public was given no opportunity to debate the wider context of energy policy and could only vote on narrow issues relating to inuclear power. Judgments about public attitudes expressed in the nine state referenda on nuclear energy in the U.S. are difficult to make because of the different ways the issue ap- peared on the ballot and because of the distorting effects of the large amounts of money spent by the pro-nuclear side.59 Never- theless, despite differences in the nature and extent of public involvement, participation has led to a discernible broadening of the concept of public interest applied to the energy sector.

Even if one concedes that greater participation alters perceptions of the public interest, it does not necessarily follow that the quality of energy policy (however defined) is thereby improved. Indeed some have argued that the "emotional" anti-nuclear views char- acteristic of participatory movements have lowered it considerably. The second proposition partially counters this criticism by holding that participation would promote greater equity in the distribution of costs and benefits of energy policy and thereby enhance social stability. Under ideal circumstances those receiving the benefits of a policy should pay its full costs or render mutually agreed compensation to those who do, which is not the case at present in the

58 Walter Patterson, "Austria's Nuclear Referendum," Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 35 (January, 1979), 6-7.

59 For a review of U. S. referenda see Lettie McSpadden Wenner and Man- fred W. Wenner, "Nuclear Policy and Public Participation," American Be- havioral Scientist 22 (October-December, 1978), 282-308.




energy sector where the lack of participation has contributed to a marked divergence of costs and benefits. This is apparent in the use of fossil fuels in which uncompensated environmental, health, and social costs of extraction, combustion, and transmission are allocated to predominantly rural areas while the benefits in the form of profits and high quality fuels or electricity go to urban areas. Similarly those living near uranium mines, nuclear plants, reprocessing facilities, or waste disposal sites are involuntarily ex- posed to higher risks of accident and the chronic effects of low level radiation. The lack of participation conceals a system of winners and losers. The winners are cooled, coiffured, and enter- tained electrically, while the losers are stripmined, irradiated, and polluted. The argument also applies to the divergence of costs and benefits between generations. The benefits of present nuclear reactors, for example, will be confined to the next 30-40 years, but the costs and risks of dismantling reactors and storing nuclear wastes will be borne by future generations who cannot participate in the decisions and who will receive no obvious compensation.

The costs and risks of energy policy thus are not random, but fall most heavily on those least able to participate in the decision-making process-including future generations, which leads to a major quandry. The losers are a poor, disorganized minority, and in the case of posterity, politically irrelevant. (To paraphrase Stalin, "How many divisions does posterity have?") In contrast, the winners are numerous, rich, and politically powerful. Any contest between the two-democratic or not-would be one-sided at best and would probably lead to even greater inequity.

Other inequities, however, affect the whole society. Political and economic benefits are also concentrated while the costs and risks of high technology energy systems are diffused. As a result, the high technology portion of the energy sector has received large subsidies for research and development, depletion allowances, tax advantages, and accelerated depreciation, that were unavailable either in kind or magnitude to low technology energy systems, and to other parts of the economy. According to one study, federal subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy total an estimated 123-133 billion dollars.60

60 Battelle Laboratories, An Analysis of Federal Incentives Used to Stimulate Energy Production (Richland Washington, 1978), 262. The Battelle esttimate of nuclear subsidies is $17 billion. Hughes Spectrolab estimated R & D and other subsidies at $24.4 billion. For a detailed analysis of nuclear economics see U. S. Congress, House Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, Nuclear Power Costs 2 volumes. 95th Congress, 1st session, 1977.




The federal government, in effect, pays about 20 percent of the cost of each new power plant. Nuclear power in particular has benefited from construction work in progress allowances, "phantom" taxes which are collected from consumers but never paid to the government, subsidized fuel enrichment, and federal responsibility for waste storage. Furthermore, utility and energy companies are buffered from the effects of accidents including nuclear meltdowns and large oil spills by de facto or de jure liability limits such as that in the Price-Anderson Act. Full responsibility is seldom assigned for acts which individually or cumulatively lead to long term environmental damage, or climate change. Similarly, the hazards of oil and natural gas depletion are quietly deferred to the future. Moreover, despite the growing knowledge of the adverse health effects of energy production and conversion these costs are widely distributed without much, if any, compensation. In short, the price that the public nominally pays for "cheap" energy has not included federal subsidies, tax advantages to energy companies, environmental costs, health costs, its replacement costs, or insurance against disaster.

It is not very convincing to argue that these external costs are only a slight technical problem to be remedied by "internalization." As the scale of energy technologies has risen so have the number of unknowns; thus the full costs of a technology are seldom evident until long afterward. But even in cases in which the costs and risks are known, well intrenched interests have opposed any reas- signment of responsibility to their disadvantage.61

Given the fact that the present costs of high technology energy systems are diffused and must be paid collectively (but the benefits are concentrated and accrue to only a few), one can argue that the public acting in its self interest would insist upon greater equity. Said differently, a minimally rational public acting on reliable information would be less willing to subsidize the exorbitant costs of high technology in the energy sector, including those of accidents, than elites (Engler's "private government of energy") who benefit in terms of power, profit, and peer acclaim. Only in instances of utter irrationality or where costs and risks can be deferred to suc- ceeding generations does this principle not hold.

Critics from the supply perspective have responded that any change toward soft technologies would lead to even greater in-

6' See Charles E. Lindblom, Politics and Markets (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 344-356.




equities because the growth in energy consumption is tied to economic growth, jobs, and social stability. An increasing supply of energy is necessary, they say, to improve the growing volume of energy necessary to support continued economic growth and would lead to social and economic ruin. The burdens, according to critics, would fall hardest and most inequitably on the poor, the elderly, and minorities displaced by economic decline, and unable to afford the high cost of on-site technologies.

There is, however, a large and growing body of evidence show- ing that on-site, renewable energy systems could meet a majority of U.S. energy needs within 50 years, and that energy use and economic growth can be de-coupled.62 As suggested in the conservation approach, this option would require a strong effort to re- move the 30-50 percent of present U.S. energy use that is wasted, as well as a transition toward a more labor intensive economy. These studies show that on-site energy technologies would create far more jobs per dollar invested than do high-technology systems.68 But the price of this approach may include less personal mobility, less consumption, and a sizeable restructuring of the society. Know- ing the fine print, would the public choose the on-site solar alternative, even if it distributed costs and benefits more equitably?

This is a difficult question to which one can only make a tenta- tive answer, but there is some evidence that the values of community, self-reliance, and simplicity implicit in small scale energy systems are becoming more attractive to a growing number of people. This change in values is reflected in data from Harris, Gallup, and Opinion Research Corporation surveys from the early 1970s to the present. A 1978 poll on environmental attitudes conducted by Re- sources for the Future, for example, concluded that environmental protection has joined such issues as education and health as en-

62 For example, Office of Technology Assessment, Application of Solar Tech- nology to Today's Energy Needs (Washington, D. C., 1978); U. S. Depart- ment of Energy, Distributed Energy Systems in California's Future (Wash- ington, D. C. 1978); Domestic Policy Review of Solar Energy (Washington, D. C., 1978).

63 See Bruce Hannon, "Economic Growth, Energy Use, and Altruism" in Dennis L. Meadows, ed., Alternatives to Growth/lI (Cambridge, MA.: Ballinger, 1977), 79-100; also Fred Branfman, Jobs From the Sun (California Public Policy Center, February, 1978); also the review by Richard Grossman and Gail Daneker, Jobs and Energy (Washington, D. C.: Environmentalists for Full Employment, 1977).




during and even generally non-controversial public concerns.64 Public attitudes toward energy technologies are less clear, although the RFF poll showed that by 47 to 31 percent the public favored environmental protection over increased energy production. A Harris survey in 1977 indicated that public support for nuclear energy had declined by 19 percent within the previous twelve months. An NBC poll in the summer of 1978 showed a majority of 52 percent opposed to further expansion of nuclear energy, but the results of the RFF poll showed that 65 percent were either "fairly" or "very" favorable to nuclear energy.65 It is not clear what effect the accident at Three Mile Island will have on public attitudes, or how much opposition to nuclear energy spills over to other high technology energy systems such as strip-mining, coal gasification, oil refineries, offshore oil drilling, and nuclear fusion. Regardless, poll data does indicate that public attitudes toward the environment, mass consumption, and technology are changing because of greater concern for the quality of life.

A third and related argument is that participation is essential as a countervailing influence to offset elite biases, ensure accountability, and to prevent domination of energy policy by special interests. The dominance of technical experts has risen with increases in the scale, sophistication, complexity, and capital requirements of energy technologies. The consequences for democratic societies are troubling. The typical response from advocates of either the supply or conservation perspectives is that technological developments represent either necessity or progress.

This attitude is rooted in the belief that the development of technology is subject to a Darwinian process of natural selection. Technologies that survive are assumed to be more "fit" than those that do not. In this view the process of technological development is as neutral as that of biological evolution. An alternative and more accurate approach would place technological change in its social and political context and explain the development and adoption of a technology as the result of social values, a specific set of economic and political payoffs, and its technical feasibility. In this view technological choices are profoundly political, affecting the

"4Resources, 60 (September-November, 1978); see also Resou-rces, 57 (January-March, 1978).

B5 As reported in Resources, 60; NBC Poll in The New York Times, Novem- ber 22, 1978.




"authoritative allocation of values" or "who gets what, when, and how?"

The present emphasis on high technology in U.S. energy policy is a product of a cultural orientation characterized by anthropo- centrism, and an uncritical faith in progress, technical efficiency, and economic growth. In Leon Lindberg's words, its proponents have a ". . . trained incapacity to think in terms of labor intensive technology or resource limits; methodological commitments that disaggregate and subdivide problems; and a trained incapacity to see that energy, ecology and economics form a single unified system." More important, present policy ". . . conforms closely to the long-term interest perceptions and survival imperatives of some of the most decisive social groupings in advanced industrial societies."66 Energy policy thus represents a crystallization of the interests of the dominant class.

One need not phrase the argument in class terrns, however, to see that high technologies will give rise to increasingly rigid political structures and large bureaucratic organizations presided over by a new class of technocrats and policy analysts deciding who shall bear what costs and what level of risk is acceptable for whom. It is not far fetched to imagine that democratic processes will be further sacrificed in the name of necessity, efficiency, and technique and that traditional civil liberties will be subordinated to the imperative of securing risky, vulnerable technologies.67 As the dependence on large-scale technology grows, so does the tolerance for risks that we would otherwise avoid, and with it the power of the managers and vendors of technology.

The thesis that technology has political implications is not new. C. S. Lewis argued in an essay in 1947 that the urge to dominate nature in fact meant that some men dominated nature in order to control other men.68 Nature in Lewis' view was simply the medium from which some men extracted economic or political leverage necessary for controlling others. Members of the Frankfurt School, including Herbert Marcuse, Jurgen Habermas, and Max Horkhei- mer, similarly have regarded science and technology as the expres- sion of dominant interests. Marcuse, for example, argues, "Science by virtue of its oNvn method and concepts, has projected and pro-

6" Lindberg, "Comparing Energy Policies," 344. See also Robert Engler, The Brotherhood of Oil (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 245-246.

67 Ayres, "Policing Plutonium." 68 C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: MacMillan 1965), 67-91.



1054 TH JOURNAL OF POLICS, VOL. 41, 1979

moted a universe in which the domination of nature has remained linked to the domination of man."69 For Habermas, likewise, the rationality of science is the "rationality of domination" which leads inevitably to the coalesence of power in a technical-administrative elite and to a pervasive technocratic ideology disguising practical problems.'0 In this perspective the technological choices involved in energy policy are political; and public oversight is necessary to broaden the range of interests brought to bear on decisions before large capital investments and irreversible choices are made.

Critics will respond that participation has its own dangers including the possibility that energy policy will be fragmented, and subject to prolonged stalemate. But it may be that in an era when vast technological gambles are made on the basis of scientific knowledge that is prone to rapid obsolescence, delay and fragmenta- tion may have some survival value.

More seriously, if public oversight is to be meaningful, it will be necessary to consider limiting energy technologies to those which can be controlled democratically.71 This consideration might lead to limits on technologies that are resistant to public oversight, either because they are too complex to be comprehensible or because their social and ecological effects are unpredictable. It might also be necessary to limit technologies that require longer time commitments than a democratic society with shifting public attitudes could make, applying to all choices that were irreversible over, say, 50 years. The catch, of course, is that participation implies that the public has the right to sign away its own control and to make Faustian bargains with whomever, or whatever, it pleases. Whether plausible or not, others will argue the opposite: that the public would jealously guard its oversight function and would thereby inhibit technological "progress" or stop it altogether. The belief that given the opportunity the public would reject some energy technologies, however, may be a tacit admission that we might be better off without them.

In any event, public oversight is obviously a two-edged sword. Which way it cuts depends a great deal on factors that I have not touched on, particularly those of public education. Some argue that

69 Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), 166.

70 Jurgen Habermas, Toward a Rational Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), 111.

71 Engler, Brotherhood, 209-250; Feyerabend, Science, 96-98.




this necessarily implies limits on distorted information (e.g., ad- vertising) broadcast over public airways. Regardless, it is un- arguable that the quality of public knowledge would have to be raised substantially above its present levels.

A fourth argument, made most emphatically by Amory Lovins, holds that participation leads to greater societal resilience defined as the capacity to withstand disturbances. The three previous arguments applied directly to public involvement in policy making while the fourth applies to policy implementation. Resilience involves the decentralization of much of the energy production system to the household, neighborhood, and community levels, thereby allowing the public direct participation in the choice of operation of a variety of on-site solar, wind, biomass, and photovoltaic technologies.72 The result would be the replacement of a relatively small number of governmental decisions about energy policy by millions of 'pluralistic consumer choices."

Since solar energy is diffuse-in effect already distributed-the allocative role of government in the energy sector would necessarily diminish. The fact that solar energy can be captured and used on site without extensive processing, refining and transmission implies less federal regulation and management. The major role for government lies in managing the transition through the promotion of replacement cost pricing, life-cycle-cost accounting, the elimination of institutional barriers, and in offering assistance to consumers, manufacturers, and distributors of on-site energy systems in the form of low-interest loans, tax credits and research funding.73

Distributed energy systems, -in contrast to highly centralized facilities with extensive transportation and transmission grids, are less vulnerable to disruption from accidents, acts of God, sabotage, terrorism, embargoes, and changing societal preferences. The reasons for this lie in the fact that a large number of small producers can absorb disturbances with less chance of collapse than a system

72 Lovins, Soft Energy Paths, 52; on resilience see C. S. Holling, "The Curious Behavior of Complex Systems; Lessons from Ecology," in Harold A. Linstone and W. H. Clive Simmonds, eds., Futures Research (Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1977), 114-129; C. S. Holling, "Myths of Ecology and Energy" in Metzger, ed., Future Strategies for Energy Development (Oak Ridge RN: ORAU, 1978), 36-49; also William C. Clark, "Managing the Unknown," in Robert W. Kates, ed., Managing Technological Hazard: Research Needs and Opportunities (Boulder: Institute of Behavioral Science, 1977), 126-142.

73 Barry Commoner, The Politics of Energy (New York: Knopf, 1979) 49-65; OTA, Application of Solar Technology, 59-111.



1056 TH JOURNAL OF POL IICS, VOL. 41, 1979

with a small number of large producers.74 Thus on-site systems have a greater margin for error and a higher degree of flexibility and reversibility than do large-scale alternatives. They also pose less chance of massive environmental disruption and hence have less need for increased government authority to remedy mistakes.

Participation leading to resilience is thus more an engineering or design principle connoting flexibility and adaptability than it is an ethical imperative. It indicates prudence and caution rather than moral right. As with equity, it is not either/or but more-or less, suggesting the need for flexibility and the preservation of options in order to avoid excessive vulnerability to the unknown in the form of changing societal objectives, changing economic forces, or the emergence of new functional relations, including scarcity. Con- cern for resilience directs attention to the need to cope with un- certainty by designing a margin of error into technological systems to absorb the unexpected. In studies of ecological systems, resilience is partly a function of the degree of species diversity, which acts as a buffer against perturbations. In technological systems, diversity, redundancy, and small scale may serve a comparable function.

Conclusion

Present differences over energy policy are as much about politics as they are about technology. Attempts to confine the energy debate to the latter are inherently incomplete, misleading, and danger- ous. The supply, conservation, and energetics perspectives entail different views of policy making, but only the third has attempted explicitly to relate democratic processes to the substance of energy policy. In doing so, its proponents have implicitly sketched the basis for a revision of democratic theory in a high technology society. Whether the theory can be extended beyond the energy sector is at least debatable. The possibility that widespread public involvement in energy policy is related to controlling risk, to insur- ing the equitable distribution of costs and benefits, and to promot- ing societal resilience poses an overdue challenge to elitist versions of democratic theory and to visions of a benign, but autonomous technocracy.

74Departnent of Energy, Distributed Energy Systems, Chapter 1.



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