Policy decision-making, public involvement and nuclear energy: what do expert stakeholders think and why?

Figures & data

Table 1. OLS regression predicting expert stakeholders’ perceived importance of public involvement in nuclear decision-making.

	Final B
Block 1: Demographics
Years of professional experience	−.05
Gender (female = 1)	.27
Highest degree	.07
Block 2: Disciplines
Science	.04
Engineering	−.06
Block 3: Institutional Background
University and national laboratory scientists (Scientists)	.16
Non-profit stakeholders (Nonprofit)	.24
Private sector stakeholders (Private)	−.24
Block 4: Media attention to scientific issues
Print media	.15
Radio	.10
Television	−.11
Online media	.02
Block 5: Perceived importance of media agenda
Climate change mitigation	.11
Economics of nuclear facilities	.04
Environment health and safety	.11
Block 6: Perception of public opinion
Perceiving public opinion to be split (Split)	.50***
Block 7: Interactions
Scientists × Split	−.45**
Nonprofit × Split	−.38*
Private × Split	−.19
Total R^2	32.3%**

Notes: N = 121.

***p < .01.

**p < .05.

*p < .1.

Cell entries are final unstandardized regression coefficients (B) for all blocks. Unstandardized regression coefficients were reported because they are less sensitive to the relative size of groups and more useful than standardized coefficients for nominal variables (our chief interest) (Cohen et al. 2003).

Figure 1. Interactive effects of institutional background and public opinion perception on perceived importance of public involvement in nuclear policy decision-making.

Notes: estimated values, after controlling for all the independent variables, are depicted in the figure (scale only partially displayed). Error bars indicate standard errors.

Table 2. OLS regression predicting expert stakeholders’ perceived dividedness in public opinion with respect to the issue of nuclear energy.

	Final B
Block 1: Demographics
Years of professional experience	.11
Gender (female = 1)	.07
Highest degree	−.14
Block 2: Disciplines
Science	.38*
Engineering	.11
Block 3: Institutional background
University and national laboratory scientists (Scientists)	−.06
Non-profit stakeholders (Nonprofit)	−.09
Private sector stakeholders (Private)	−.29
Block 4: Media attention to scientific issues
Print media	−.05
Radio	.02
Television	−.05
Online media	.19*
Block 5: Perceived importance of media agenda
Climate change mitigation	−.06
Economics of nuclear facilities	.22*
Environment health and safety	.01
Total R^2 (%)	13.2

Notes: N = 121.

**p < .05.

*p < .1.

Cell entries are final unstandardized regression coefficients (B) for all blocks.

Cohen, Jacob, Patricia Cohen, Stephen G. West, and Leona S. Aiken. 2003. Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. 3rd ed. Routledge

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