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One of the most vexing problems for governments is building controversial facilities that serve the needs of all citizens but have adverse consequences for host communities. Policymakers must decide not only where to locate often unwanted projects but also what methods to use when interacting with opposition groups. In Site Fights, Daniel P. Aldrich gathers quantitative evidence from close to five hundred municipalities across Japan to show that planners deliberately seek out acquiescent and unorganized communities for such facilities in order to minimize conflict. When protests arise over nuclear power plants, dams, and airports, agencies regularly rely on the coercive powers of the modern state, such as land expropriation and police repression. Only under pressure from civil society do policymakers move toward financial incentives and public relations campaigns. Through fieldwork and interviews with bureaucrats and activists, Aldrich illustrates these dynamics with case studies from Japan, France, and the United States. The incidents highlighted in Site Fights stress the importance of developing engaged civil society even in the absence of crisis, thereby making communities both less attractive to planners of controversial projects and more effective at resisting future threats.
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Reviews
"The popular slogan NIMBY-Not in My Back Yard-captures a classic dilemma that confronts policymakers: Although society as a whole requires certain basic public goods, such as energy supplies, improved infrastructure, and transportation hubs, individual communities are often unwilling to bear the localized costs and externalities of hosting these installations. In this fresh, insightful, and creati
Alexander Cooley, Perspectives on Politics
"The unique contribution of this book lies in its nature as an exercise in comparative public policy. The case studies, which include Japan and France, are very well done and provide empirical evidence for the universal nature of the human reaction to siting dilemmas. They suggest that the strategic interaction between democratic state policy processes and the organizational structure of the civic
Political Science Quarterly
"Although the study is largely a chronicle of failed efforts by civil-society groups to stop public projects in their communities, Aldrich emphasizes that when civil society mobilizes broadly and strongly, it can force the state to use milder tactics and can sometimes even prevail."
Patricia G. Steinhoff, American Journal of Sociology