Averting Catastrophe: Strategies for Regulating Risky Technologies

by J. Morone, E. Woodhouse

eBook Details:

Publisher: University of California Press 1988
ISBN/ASIN: 0520057546
ISBN-13: 9780520057548
Number of pages: 224

eBook Description:

This volume attacks an intriguing puzzle: Why, despite close calls, have risky civilian technologies produced no catastrophes in the United States? Such technologies as toxic chemicals and nuclear power pervade contemporary life, and dire and sometimes compelling warnings of their hazards are as familiar as the silhouette of the Three Mile Island cooling towers. Yet so far, we have been free of major disaster. Have we simply been lucky—or is our good fortune at least partly the result of deliberate efforts to protect against these hazards?

We first came to this question in the course of our graduate studies, while writing dissertations on the regulation of risky technologies. We found an enormous literature on the subject, but little that would help us reach a systematic judgment. Technical work on the subject was nearly unintelligible and did not directly address our questions; studies by risk analysts showed much less respect for uncertainty and human error than political scientists could find plausible; and the claims of critics and supporters of various risky endeavors seemed patently biased.

To our surprise, moreover, we found a large gap in knowledge of how society actually regulates risky technologies. If there are strategies in use, nowhere are they carefully described. If there are sensible prescriptions that might improve these strategies, nowhere are they clearly articulated. If there is reason for confidence in society’s ability to avert future catastrophes, nowhere is it laid out simply and systematically.