Conclusion: harnessing political chain reactions

TL;DRAbstract

The powerful chain reaction triggered by unprecedented reliance on expert guidance housed in large-scale bureaucratic structures funded at public expense is perhaps the most significant political development in America in the past fifty years. Plotting the course of this chain reaction revises our understanding of the rise and fall of commercial nuclear power in the United States. It redirects the emphasis away from external pressures, whether World War II or growing environmental consciousness, toward the professionals and administrators who staked proprietary claims to this new federal policy. Nuclear power's trajectory, I argue, is best explained by an internal dynamic fueled by the constantly shifting elaboration of expertise and administrative capacity within the nuclear community and the juxtaposition of the proministrative state and an older, less professional, and far more decentralized American political landscape. This perspective in turn shifts the chronological focus of my

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