Making Democracy Work to Slow Down the Treadmill: How Varieties of Democracy Influence the Nuclear Development?

• In Event: 3540 - Development and Global Environmental Change: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

This research strives to examine the association between democracy and the utilization of nuclear power. To solve the methodological problem of the limited dependent variable, the Heckman corrected model is applied to the analysis. The research findings indicate that, in contrast to the conventional perspective existing in the literature about social movements, democracy is not always the antithesis of the use of nuclear power. When taking account a country’s probability of using nuclear energy, the results illustrate that all forms of democracy are positively associated with the use of nuclear power. After corrected with the Heckman model, we find that the alternative forms of democracy, particularly deliberative democracy and participation in civil society, are negatively associated with the percentage of total power generation from nuclear energy. In other words, varieties of democracy have different impacts on the utilization of nuclear power.

Author

• Yun-Chung Ting, Academia Sinica