Media Framing and Public Attitudes Toward Biofuels

This study investigates the relationship between media framing and public opinion on the issue of biofuels—transportation fuels made from plants, animal products, or organic waste. First, the paper investigates how media framing of biofuels has changed since the issue regained national prominence in the early 2000s. Through a detailed content analysis of newspaper coverage, the paper documents an increase in negative frames between 1999 and 2008, especially frames focusing on the negative economic effects of biofuels on consumers. Second, using data from a 2010 Internet survey of a random sample of the U.S. public, the paper analyzes the relative influence of these new media frames on public attitudes toward biofuels compared with other common predictors of public opinion, such as party ID, regional economic interests, and personal identity as an environmentalist. In general, the results confirm that public attitudes toward biofuels appear to be shaped by these new media frames, especially among those who indicate a high degree of attention to the media, suggesting the relative importance of framing effects on policy attitudes for environmental and energy policies in general.     

Managing Nanotechnology Risks in Vulnerable Populations: A Case for Gender Diversity

Funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), this study asks qualitatively analyzes interviews with 48 nanoscientist users at four NNIN facilities. The main research questions were: (1) Do nanotechnologies pose unique social and ethical concerns?; (2) how are the risks associated with nanotechnology distributed among different human populations?; (3) what are specific policy steps that can be used to manage such risks? This study purposefully oversampled female scientists to correct for the historical underrepresentation of women in the nanotechnology workforce. By amplifying the voice of this science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce minority, the policy discussion contained herein better reflects the concerns of the general population. The results, analyzed with the aid of qualitative data analysis software, yield interesting differences in risk characterization among the scientists and innovative policy suggestions for the nanoscience community and regulators alike.     

The Current Status and Future Direction of Nanotechnology Regulations: A View from Nano‐scientists

This article presents an up‐to‐date view of leading U.S. nanoscientists' perceptions about the regulation of nanotechnology. Our analysis draws from the results of a 2011 mail survey with 444 of the most prolific nanoscientists in the United States to explore their perceptions about existing nanotech policies, the development of new nanotech policies, and mandatory policies about the implementation of safe lab practices for federally funded nanoresearch. In addition to exploring the scientists' perceptions about these pressing policy issues, we also test relationships between their perceptions about regulation and control variables such as gender, disciplinary affiliation, and political ideology. Last, the results of the 2011 data collection are compared with a similar mail survey that was conducted in 2007 with leading U.S. nanoscientists to explore any changes over the four‐year time period in scientists' perceptions about nanotechnology policy making, and governmental involvement in nanotechnology research.     

Agenda Setting in Emergent R&D Policy Subsystems: Examining Discourse Effects of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act

The literature on government responsiveness to societal issues is extensive but provides a mixed assessment of effectiveness. We examine this issue in the case of policy addressing effective and safe management of research and development in the emerging field of nanotechnology. Specifically, we examine the agenda setting effects of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (the Act), a piece of legislation designed to be implemented by a network of actors in the nanotechnology research and development policy subsystem. We adopt a public values lens in our examination of discourse related to societal concerns. Policy documents from Congress, an agency, and federal funding recipients are examined. Findings suggest a narrowing of public values discourse around more specific societal concerns in the documents crafted after the Act was passed.     

Engaging in Small Talk: Nanotechnology Policy and Dialogue Processes in the UK and Australia

This article discusses the phenomena of nanotechnology, and notes that despite high investment levels for global research and development, the public presently understands neither the implications of this emerging technology nor how it might be best governed. It considers the notion of the public interest and its place in the public policy cycle, and notes some of the specific challenges posed by this new technology. Adopting a comparative jurisdictional approach, this article maps a range of policy and dialogue activities currently underway within the United Kingdom and Australia and concludes that policy dialogue is an essential component of public policy development for all emerging technologies. While the Australian government is currently beginning this process, compared to countries such as the United Kingdom, such efforts here are still embryonic. A fuller engagement in wide‐ranging public debate is suggested as a part of protecting the public interest.     

Improving Legitimacy in Nanotechnology Policy Development Through Stakeholder and Community Engagement: Forging New Pathways

This paper reports on a multistakeholder engagement process conducted in an Australian policy setting that led to a new community engagement framework: Science and Technology Engagement Pathways (STEP). I describe the process in the context of a lack of awareness, experience, and culture of deliberative public engagement in Australia, particularly in relation to decision making concerning science, technology, and innovation. Increasing cautiousness in government and industry approaches to nanotechnology development, in Australia and elsewhere, creates an imperative and an opening for improved stakeholder and community engagement to improve the legitimacy and sustainability of decisions. In this context, STEP may stimulate movement toward deliberative engagement by raising awareness and commitment from diverse stakeholders and providing a structure for developments in engagement and public dialog. STEP potentially provides “rules of engagement” and “intervention pathways” for ongoing public engagement with science and technology developments and for critical “science in society” perspectives to inform policy.     

Universities and State Policy Formation: Rationalizing a Nanotechnology Strategy in Pennsylvania

Technology‐based economic development programs have become a salient feature of the state policy landscape since the 1980s. While much research exists on the topic, little attention has been given to the processes of policy formation. State programs have moved towards high technology areas emphasized at the federal level over the past decades, and nanotechnology became one of the latest targets. This paper examines the eight‐year process through which Pennsylvania adopted a “state‐wide strategy,” culminating in the Pennsylvania Initiative for Nanotechnology. In this process, programs that responded to the interests of multiple agents came first, and a state policy was formulated after the fact. This pattern of “rationalized policy formation,” as opposed to rational policy formation, may be more common than suspected. Its strengths and weaknesses in this Pennsylvania case are discussed.     

Food Brexit and Chlorinated Chicken: A Microcosm of Wider Food Problems

This paper situates food safety concerns raised in the Brexit debate since the referendum and suggests that, although the issue of chlorinated chicken entered public discourse, it represents wider concerns about food safety standards. Food safety has had high resonance in the UK since the 1980s, but Brexit shows how it connects to wider concerns also raised about Brexit, such as impacts on healthcare, the effects of austerity on food poverty, the limitations of low waged employment, concerns about migration and labour markets, and regional economic disparities. Brexit’s impact on the UK food system is immense because food has been highly integrated into EU governance. While food standards can be portrayed as a single narrow issue, the paper suggests it provides a useful lens with which to examine, interrogate and comprehend these wider Brexit politics. The complex realities of food politics and wider food system dynamics undermine any simplistic political narrative of ‘taking back control’.     

“The Train Has Left the Station”: The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and the Shaping of Nanotechnology Policy in the United States

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efforts of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) in seeking to influence nanotechnology policy in the United States. Using the conceptual framework of anticipatory governance to guide the analysis, a series of strategies that PEN adopted will be described, including leveraging external expertise, developing cross‐disciplinary research products, providing a future‐oriented view on policy analysis, and building a brand for communications and outreach. This case study is a useful example in demonstrating the recent conceptual shift away from relying on government‐led technology assessment efforts to consider the longer‐term implications of new technologies toward the concept of anticipatory governance that includes a more substantive role for nongovernmental actors, that in providing forward‐looking, actionable intelligence for decision makers. Considering the example of PEN also highlights the critical role that boundary‐spanning organizations play in linking together disparate communities of expertise.     

Public Support for Climate Change Policy: Consistency in the Influence of Values and Attitudes Over Time and Across Specific Policy Alternatives

This study examines the factors that explain public preferences for a set of climate change policy alternatives. While scholarly work indicates a relationship between attitudes and values on views toward specific issues, the literature often examines general support for issues rather than specific policy proposals. Consequently, it is unclear the extent to which these attitudes and values affect specific policy considerations. This project examines public support for five climate change policy options in two national surveys taken three years apart. The empirical analysis reveals that time is a factor and that those who are liberal, have strong ecological values, report greater concern for climate change, and trust experts are consistently more supportive of the climate policy options considered here. The results shed new light on the nuanced views of the American public toward climate change.     

Not again! Public perception,regulation, and nanotechnology

It is often argued that immediate government action regarding nanotechnology is needed to ensure that public opinion does not mistakenly view nanotechnology as dangerous, to restore public trust in government, and to increase the legitimacy of government action through increased public participation. This article questions whether governments can achieve these goals. As the world lurches toward regulation of nanotechnology, we should ask Why the rush? Can anticipatory action, perceived as the government doing something, fulfill the competing hopes to “restore trust,”“pave the way” for nanotechnology, “increase awareness,” and “satisfy democratic notions of accountability”? Or is government action more likely to increase existing divisions over nanotechnology's future?     

Risk Analysis of Nanomaterials: Exposing Nanotechnology's Naked Emperor

Risk analysis (encompassing risk assessment, management, and communication) is touted internationally as the most appropriate approach for governing nanomaterials. In this article, we survey existing criticisms of risk assessment as a basis for regulatory decision making on emerging technologies, particularly highlighting its exclusion of key societal dimensions, its epistemological underdetermination, and its lack of democratic accountability. We then review the specific case of nanomaterials and identify six major barriers to the effective operation of both risk assessment and risk management. These include a lack of: nano‐specific regulatory requirements, shared definitions, validated and accessible methods for safety testing, available scientific knowledge, reliable information on commercial use, and capacity for exposure mitigation. Finding the knowledge, standards, methods, tools, definitions, capacity, and political commitment all insufficient, we argue that risk analysis is a “naked emperor” for nanomaterial governance. We therefore suggest that additional concepts and approaches are essential for nanomaterials policy and regulation.     

Implications of Occupational Locus and Focus for Public Service Motivation: Attitudes Toward Work Motives across Nations

Is occupational locus or focus important for public service motivation? Does national context influence public service motivation? To answer both questions, the author examines attitudes toward work motives from national samples in 11 North American and Western European nations using multilevel binary logistic regression analysis. The findings demonstrate that the locus of an occupation in government and its focus on a public service activity both are important in shaping preferences for work motives related to public service motivation. Also, the preference for work motives held by citizens is correlated with the type of welfare regime in a nation. Although it is less pronounced, some evidence suggests that the type of welfare regime influences preferences toward work motives among government employees.     

Big Data and U.S. Public Policy

This paper examines the growing recognition of the phenomenon called “Big Data” and the policy implications it poses. It is argued that a core policy issue is personal and organizational privacy. At the same time there is a belief that analysis of “Big Data” offers potentially to provide public sector policy makers with extensive new information that would inform policy at unprecedentedly detailed levels. Despite this potential to improve the policy‐making process data often contain individual identifiable information that would negatively impact American core values such as privacy. This makes the use of these data almost impossible. The paper recognizes that there may be a way to strip individual data from Big Data sets thereby making their analysis more policy useful. This approach is not at this time technically feasible but research is ongoing.     

Public Information and Regulatory Processes: What the Public Knows and Regulators Decide

Because bureaucratic agencies may be less transparent in their decision processes than legislatures, most states have developed processes to incorporate input from regulated communities and other parties potentially affected by regulations. Administrative agencies may encourage democratic practices to increase legitimacy and accountability of the bureaucracy and improve decision‐making processes. However, rules governing the regulatory process vary by state, with some incorporating more open practices than others. Understanding these dynamics is increasingly important, as the rulemaking process has become central to policymaking over the past several decades, with a large portion of policymaking authority delegated to administrative agencies. Drawing from regulatory documents, rulemaking comments, media coverage, and interviews with regulators in 14 regulatory decision processes across five states, this study finds that while states vary in their approach to providing access to information, there are overriding patterns that reduce the role of citizens and the overall transparency of regulatory processes.     

Israeli Leadership and Public Attitudes Toward Federal Solutions for the Arab-Israeli Conflict Before and After Desert Storm

This first empirical investigation of support for federativesolutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict among the Jewish politicalleadership and general public of Israel suggests that, despitethe Palestinian Intifada and the Gulf War, there is a potentialbasis within Israel for federal approaches to intercommunaland interstate conflict resolution. Both leaders and the publicare dissatisfied with the status quo. Political leaders aremore supportive than the public of federative arrangements,while the public is somewhat more supportive of an autonomyarrangement for the Palestinians than it was before the Gulfcrisis. While the Intifada appears to have produced a slightlymore dovish trend among leaders and among voters, the Gulf Warappears not to have produced any basic changes in the viewsof political leaders or general citizens.     

The Howard Government: The Extent to which Public Attitudes Influenced Australia's Federal Policy Mix

This article focuses on the interaction between government policy and public attitudes in order to explain why the Howard government was reasonably pragmatic given that it maintained enough popular support to win four successive federal elections from 1996, and why such a relationship is crucial to evaluating policy trends in Australia's liberal democracy in terms of understanding both policy possibilities and limitations no matter how flawed or divisive certain policies may appear to be.     

Achilles' heels of governance: Critical capacity deficits and their role in governance failures

This article assesses the usefulness of conceptions of policy capacity for understanding policy and governance outcomes. In order to shed light on this issue, it revisits the concept of governance, derives a model of basic governance types and discusses their capacity pre‐requisites. A model of capacity is developed combining competences over three levels of activities with analysis of resource capabilities at each level. This analysis is then applied to the common modes of governance. While each mode requires all types of capacity if it is to match its theoretically optimal potential, most on‐the‐ground modes do not attain their highest potential. Moreover, each mode has a critical type of capacity which serves as its principle vulnerability; its “Achilles' heel.” Without high levels of the requisite capacity, the governance mode is unlikely to perform as expected. While some hybrid modes can serve to supplement or reinforce each other and bridge capacity gaps, other mixed forms may aggravate single mode issues. Switching between modes or adopting hybrid modes is, therefore, a non‐trivial issue in which considerations of capacity issues in general and Achilles' heel capacities in particular should be a central concern.     

Community structure and the behavior of transnational sustainability governors: Toward a multi‐relational approach

Hundreds of transnational private governance organizations (TPGOs) have emerged in recent decades to govern social and environmental conditions of production using voluntary standards. A debate persists over whether the ties among different TPGOs and other organizations create a professional community that affects the behavior of TPGOs. To help resolve this debate, we analyze multiple ties among agriculture TPGOs to offer a more robust exploration of community structures and their potential effects for three forms of TPGO behavior – coordination, collaboration, and isomorphism. Our aggregate measure of ties reveals a thin community dominated by older TPGOs and TPGOs advancing a broad notion of sustainability that were created by Solidaridad, the World Wildlife Fund, and/or Unilever. The clearest community structures are built from ties that exhibit the potential for not actual collaboration, coordination, and isomorphism. Thus, while there exists convergence toward an emergent TPGO‐community, obstacles remain to more intense behavioral effects for TPGOs.