The National Politics of Nuclear Power

This book offers a comprehensive assessment of the dynamics driving, and constraining, nuclear power development in Asia, Europe and North America, providing detailed comparative analysis.

The book formulates a theory of nuclear socio-political economy which highlights six factors necessary for embarking on nuclear power programs: (1) national security and secrecy, (2) technocratic ideology, (3) economic interventionism, (4) a centrally coordinated energy stakeholder network, (5) subordination of opposition to political authority, and (6) social peripheralization. The book validates this theory by confirming the presence of these six drivers during the initial nuclear power developmental periods in eight countries: the United States, France, Japan, Russia (the former Soviet Union), South Korea, Canada, China, and India.

The authors then apply this framework as a predictive tool to evaluate contemporary nuclear power trends. They discuss what this theory means for developed and developing countries which exhibit the potential for nuclear development on a major scale, and examine how the new "renaissance" of nuclear power may affect the promotion of renewable energy, global energy security, and development policy as a whole. The volume also assesses the influence of climate change and the recent nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, on the nuclear power industry’s trajectory.

This book will be of interest to students of energy policy and security, nuclear proliferation, international security, global governance and IR in general.

Benjamin K. Sovacool is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Institute for Energy and Environment at Vermont Law School, where he manages the Energy Security and Justice Program. He is editor, author, or co-author of nine books, including the Routledge Handbook of Energy Security (2010).

Scott Victor Valentine is Associate Professor and Associate Director of the International Master of Public Policy Program at the Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo, Japan. He has a Ph.D. from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.