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From Three Mile Island to Fukushima: the impact of analogy on attitudes toward nuclear power

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Abstract

Policy scholars are paying increasing attention to the role of language in policy debates, with particular emphasis on narratives. Policy narratives serve as strategic tools that, among other things, can shift public opinion in favor of policy preferences. One narrative element that has received little attention thus far from policy scholars is analogy, though analogies frequently appear in policy stories. This study applies insights on analogical reasoning from the fields of cognitive and political psychology to the literature on policy narrative. I argue that analogies are best classified as a component of the story’s plotline, and explore the potential micro-level impacts of analogies on policy attitudes. Using the Narrative Policy Framework, I examine the empirical effects of exposure to analogy on public opinion related to nuclear power using data from a national-level survey of 2544 US adults conducted by the Marist Poll. In a split-sample design, respondents were exposed to narrative prompts that discussed nuclear power generally or with reference to past accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and/or Fukushima, and then asked about their views on nuclear energy. The results indicate that the effects of analogizing are limited, as participants that hear negative analogies do not have attitudes that are significantly more negative toward nuclear power. However, there are interesting interaction effects between analogy exposure and partisanship, suggesting the existence of partisan entrenchment on the issue.

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Notes

  1. On April 12, 2011, the Japanese government announced that it had raised their assessment of the Fukushima disaster to a score of 7, the highest possible rating on the International Atomic Energy Association’s International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (qualifying it as a “major accident”). The only other accident to receive a score of 7 was the disaster in Chernobyl in 1986.

  2. Policy windows represent temporary opportunities for actors to achieve significant policy change. As conceived by John Kingdon, these windows open when three streams within the policymaking world converge: the problem stream, populated by public issues that are constructed as challenges requiring governmental attention; the policy stream, which contains policy solutions being proposed by various participants; and the politics stream, which reflects public opinion, electoral, legislative, and other governing circumstances. See Kingdon, J. W. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

  3. See also Table 1.3 in Jones et al. (2014a, 17) for a summary of narrative strategy hypotheses posed in the NPF.

  4. For more information about the polling methods employed by the Marist Poll, see http://maristpoll.marist.edu/methods/.

  5. It is important to note that support for nuclear dropped immediately after the incident at Three Mile Island, but shortly thereafter began to rebound. By the summer months of 1979, acceptance of nuclear power had returned to pre-Three Mile Island levels. The sustained increase in opposition to nuclear did not appear until a few years later in 1982–1983 (Smith 2002, 74).

  6. See “Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident” (2013) for a summary of the accident at Three Mile Island and details on the differences between this accident and the one at Chernobyl.

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  1. Department of Political Science, Marist College, 200 Fontaine Hall, 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY, 12601, USA

    Jessica E. Boscarino

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Boscarino, J.E. From Three Mile Island to Fukushima: the impact of analogy on attitudes toward nuclear power. Policy Sci 52, 21–42 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-018-9333-5

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