A Revival of Nuclear Power

This book explores the limits to governance through a comparative analysis of the politics of delivering nuclear power as a key part of the future energy mix in four contemporary advanced industrial democracies. In this introduction, we offer an initial commentary on the four issues that dominate our analysis. First, we look at the role of nuclear power in energy provision and explain why we think it makes an intriguing case for the study of governance and metagovernance in a difficult context. Second, we set the twenty-first-century pursuit of nuclear power — our focus of attention — in a historical context. Third, we explore the concept of governance and argue that it has a valuable role to play in helping us to understand the unfolding of nuclear power policy formulation and implementation. Fourth, we identify some of the main themes of our analysis by exploring dimensions to the limits of governance in the context of the attempts of a range of contemporary democracies to stimulate a renaissance of nuclear power in the early decades of the twenty-first century. The introduction concludes with a brief outline of the chapters and argument of the remainder of the book.