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 Controversy
and Politics
Participants
Dynamics
of Controversy
Function
of Controversy
•
Rhetoric
Stages
of Controversy
Environmental
Philosophies
Environmental
Politics
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Rhetoric-Common
Features of a Debate
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 Proponents
of a Technology
- needs
- effectiveness
- safety
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Opponents
of a Technology
- question need
- question
effectiveness
- question
safety
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Establishment
- discredit challengers as
uninformed, misguided, lacking
credibility
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Challengers
- represent their view as
public interest ie citizens vs big business/big
government
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"As lines are drawn in a
technical controversy and the positions become polarized,
each side develops a rhetoric, an articulated ideology
that is more or less shared by partisans. This rhetoric
includes the individual rationales which are most popular
as well as other beliefs. New recruits to each site of a
controversy are socialised into those parts of its
iedology which they do not hold already."
Allan Mazur
Rhetoric is also influenced
by:
Classes
of Technology
- technologies which give people low
doses of something which, in higher doses, is very
toxic
- technologies which have the
potential for very low-probability but very
high-consequence accidents
Values
and Ideology
- emphasis on environmental
values
- emphasis on economic growth and
efficiency
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