TOPICS:
Communication and the limiting of misunderstandings; politics; of general applicability to environmental problems; written for the first party participant.
ABSTRACT:
Public Knowledge and Environmental Politics in Japan and the United States is an examination of the relationship between knowledge and the multiple variables affecting it, and the relationship of knowledge to environmental politics.
Public Knowledge and Environmental Politics in Japan and the United States will be of interest to those who seek an understanding of the relationship between variables affecting knowledge and the latter's relationship with environmental politics. The book is divided into eight chapters, each addressing a separate variable which affects knowledge.
Chapter one begins with an introduction followed by a brief examination of several areas. A discussion of post-industrialism is prefatory to a discussion of ideology, technical, and scientific issues and their relation to post-industrialism and value changes. The consequences of value changes is followed by consideration of information links and necessary critical questions to be posed. Each of the remaining chapters is devoted to the examination of one of these seven questions. The chapter closes with a brief consideration of the Shizuoka/Spokane Study which was a research project which offered a comparison of Japanese and American environmental politics and public knowledge of same.
Chapter two addresses the distribution of knowledge specifically: the measurement and concentration of knowledge. Chapter three discusses the background sources of knowledge. After a brief discussion of the chapter's chief concern, the authors address: the socioeconomic correlates of information, the demographic correlates of information holding and the social and demographic influences considered in toto. Chapter four examines the relationship between motivation and knowledge. It begins with consideration of the subjective importance which individuals attach to substantive content of particular policy areas. This is followed by estimations of policy urgency, and perceived governmental responsiveness. A brief discussion of political participation is followed by an examination of the cumulative impact of motivational variables. The chapter closes with a discussion of the implications of background and motivational sources of knowledge.
Chapter five is a careful discussion about the relationship between knowledge and beliefs about the future. Chapter six examines the relationship between knowledge and policy preferences. The authors begin with a consideration of environmental policy preferences, followed by an examination of the relationship between knowledge and the direction of environmental attitudes. The chapter closes with a discussion of attitudinal sources of environmental beliefs. Chapter seven discusses knowledge and power, specifically power and post-industrial politics. The authors also discuss how political power is measured, and the relationship between knowledge and: aggregate distributions of power, individual measures of power, and the perception of power. The final chapter addresses the relationship between knowledge and the possibility of democracy.
Public Knowledge and Environmental Politics in Japan and the United States is a careful examination of the relationship between knowledge and each of seven variables which influence knowledge and its relationship to environmental politics. The text is supported by tables and figures and both an author and subject index.
T. A. O'Lonergan