Paper presented at the WAPOR seminar “Encuestas electorales, información y comportamiento electoral” in Madrid, November 27-29, 1980. Its scheme for value analysis was presented to the first meeting of the Alternative Ways of Life sub-project of the UN University GPID Project, Cartigny, April 12-14, 1978. Published in HSDRGPID, 0379-5764;41, The United Nations University Tokyo. © Sifo 1980. Reprinted by permission.

THE SWEDISH PUBLIC AND NUCLEAR ENERGY:
THE REFERENDUM 1980

Hans L Zetterberg

Part 1: NUCLEAR ENERGY IN THE VALUE PROCESS
General Value Trends and Nuclear Opinion
The Typical Actors and Their Values
The Hard Core of Reproductive Values
A Value Shift?
The Shadow of the Atom Bomb?
Part 2: NUCLEAR ENERGY IN THE POLITICAL, PROCESS
The Political Background of the Referendum
The Party Politics of the Referendum
Part 3: THE CAMPAIGN AND THE PROCESS OF OPINION FORMATION
The Externals of the Campaign
The Information Need
The Arguments
Credibility
The Thrusts of No and Yes
The Media
Expressed and Silent Opinions
CONCLUSION
A Kind of Summary: Values vs Class as Determinants
Commentary: The Referendum as a Spell Breaker
REFERENCES
Appendix: This is what it says on the voting slips

A referendum is a multi-headed phenomenon. On the one hand, it is an attitudinal event and as such it can only be understood as a detail in the process of value development in a culture. On the other hand, it is a political event and as such it can only be understood as a detail in the political process of a nation. In the third place, these processes interact in a campaign and the resulting vote of the electorate can only be understood as part of a process of the formation of public opinion. We shall explore all these processes, not only with a view of explaining the outcome of the referendum, but also with the ambition to understand the nature of the processes.

This paper is divided into three sections. The first deals with the value systems of (modern) societies and describes how their configurations in Sweden in 1980 influenced the referendum on nuclear energy. The second section considers nuclear energy and the referendum in the light of party politics. The third section treats the formation of public opinion during the campaign that preceded the referendum.

The paper is based on the various studies conducted at Sifo on the Swedish referendum on nuclear energy 1980. A series of studies was sponsored by IFO, an industry group promoting the full use of Sweden’s nuclear investment. Another series of opinion measurements was sponsored by TV-Aktuellt, a news program chartered to be neutral, factual, and nonpartisan. Additional studies were sponsored by Reportage, a short-lived weekly whose editorial staff was anti-nuclear. The review of value change which comprises the first part of the paper was our own initiative and supported by Sifo’s internal funds.

When no other source is given, the figures cited in this paper have been derived from the measurements obtained through Sifo’s nationwide omnibus surveys. In these, 1,000 individuals 18-70 years of age are interviewed; new respondents are obtained for each survey through random sampling from a sampling frame with optimal stratification; the interviews are conducted in the respondents’ homes. The number of selected respondents that could not be interviewed for whatever reason does not vary significantly from one survey to another, and remains at a level between 18 and 20 percent.

The Sifo research team on nuclear energy included Ingrid Berg, Karin Busch, Greta Frankel, and Hans L Zetterberg.  The latter has formulated the views in this paper.

 

Part 1: NUCLEAR ENERGY IN THE VALUE PROCESS

The first official investigation of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in Sweden got under way in 1945. Interest in nuclear energy was motivated both by a desire to avoid dependence on imported fuels and by a concern that Sweden would fall under the influence of the United States and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers who appeared to move toward a monopoly on atomic energy at the time. Nuclear energy seemed to be a most promising technological achievement that would provide cheap and ample fuel supplies. In 1954 the first experimental reactor was put into service. In 1972 the first commercial reactor was in commission at Oskarshamn.

The decision makers who introduced nuclear energy into Sweden viewed it primarily as an economical alternative or complement to water power, coal, and oil. But the end-consumers −  the public at large −  are primarily concerned with environmental and safety issues when assessing the comparative merits of different fuel sources. The cost factor is of much less weight. We asked: “What do you think is the most important requirement of an energy source −  that it be cheap, that it be safe for the environment, that it be risk-free, or that it be available in the event of a crisis or war?” The answers and the resultant ratings are given in the table below.

		Most important	Next most important	Next least important	Least important	Average rating
Safe for the environment Risk-free   Available in event of a crisis or war Cheap	1977 1979 1980 1977 1979 1980 1977 1979 1980 1977 1979 1980	42% 35% 33% 28% 33% 32% 19% 22% 24% 9% 11% 9%	28% 33% 34% 39% 29% 29% 12% 12% 14% 15% 16% 15%	17% 16% 18% 18% 19% 23% 31% 28% 24% 23% 21% 22%	5% 6% 7% 7% 8 8% 29% 27 28% 46% 44% 45%	3.18 3.06 3.01 2.96 2.97 2.93 2.23 2.34 2.39 1.86 1.93 1.87

A harsher economic climate and the more unstable political situation in the Middle East did not change the public’s ranking of desired criteria for different energy sources. However, the percentage that gave priority to environmental protection decreased slightly between 1977 and 1980.

The general public considers water power to be unquestionably the most favorable energy source from all viewpoints: it is least harmful to the environment, it entails the least dangers, it would be most available in the event of war, and it is the cheapest. Diagram 1 shows the assessments of water power, coal, oil, and nuclear energy in accordance with the four criteria. (The questions were as follows: “Given the fuel sources oil, coal, water power, and nuclear energy, which do you think is best, next best, next to worst, and worst? a) How safe are they for the environment? b) How expensive? c) How dangerous? d) How dependable would they be in the event of a crisis or war?”) Coal was uniformly assigned second place, but one doesn’t think it is very much safer for the environment than oil and nuclear energy. Nuclear energy and oil get the lowest ratings. Oil is considered to be the worst source, but it scores better than nuclear energy in respect to the element of danger. Assessments were relatively similar in 1977 and 1980. The only significant change was that prior to the referendum nuclear energy was considered to be a somewhat more economical fuel source than three years earlier.

But, as noted, values other than economic aspects dominate in the general public’s assessment of energy forms. The economic criteria of decision makers clash with the environmental criteria of the voters. The contours of a conflict are evident: decision makers think the public at large is unrealistic, and the latter considers the decision makers unreasonable.

Diagram 1. The general public's assessment of four energy sources in 1977 and 1980.
 

General Value Trends and Nuclear Opinion

In main, nuclear opinion can be understood −  and in a sense also forecasted −  in light of developments in the general climate of values. We will therefore summarize the latter.

The value systems that are the expressions of dominant motivations −  “the vocabularies of motives,” to use C Wright Mill's term −  can roughly divide into three categories:

1. The Values of Sustenance −  which relate to the basic necessities for survival: food, clothing, lodging, and some security in the event of illness and in old age. We shall refer to individuals who are dominated by the exigencies of survival and the need for security as Sustenance-oriented. Among their numbers in today’s Swedish society we find the Subsistence-minded and the Security-minded. The former live just to get by, financially and/or physically, the latter live cautiously and guard the security they have attained. (There is another category for whom life-maintenance is more of a psychological than an economic problem, but we shall not treat this here.)

2. The Values of Production −  which relate to the requisite elements for growing prosperity and level of living: among them, order, ambition, efficiency. Such values are shared by outward-oriented people. Their sustenance needs have been met and they have been able to attend to other needs. The criteria that these needs have been satisfied depend on external cues. Among their numbers we find the “Group-faithful,” the “Status seeker,” the “Mover.” The Group-faithful live in a manner that does not deviate from group norms. The Status seekers try to live in a manner that mirrors the lifestyles of their idols. The Movers live to demonstrate achievement and success.

3. The Values of Reproduction −  which relate to what is necessary for personal inner growth and quality of life. Here we find the intraceptive individual who is in touch with his own emotions and responds to the cues he receives from them; here too, we find the empathetic individual, who is in touch with the emotions of others and responds to them. When such values are dominant, we speak of inward-oriented people. Their sustenance needs have also been met and they have been able to attend to their psychological needs. The criteria that these needs have been satisfied depend on internal cues. Among their numbers we find the “Self-faithful,” the “Experience-seekers,” and the “Reformers.” The Self-faithful live to manifest their own personalities. The Experience-seeker lives for new inner experiences. The Reformer lives critically with a sense of mission.

Diagram 2. Terminological comparison

This paper	Values of sustenance		Values of production			Values of reproduction
	Subsistence-minded	Security- minded	Group- faithful	Status- seekers	Movers	Self- faithful	Experience-seekers	Reformers
Marx	Production					Reproduction
Yankelovich1	Old-breed (Standard of living)					New-breed (Quality of life)
Inglehart2	Materialist					Post-materialist
Toffler3	First wave		Second wave			Third wave
Riesman4	Inner-directed		Tradition- directed	Outer- directed		Autonomous
Maslow5	Survival	Security	Belonging	Esteem		Self-actualizing
McGregor6	Theory X			Theory Y		Theory Z
Mitchell7	Need-driven		Outer-directed			Inner-directed
	Survivors	Sustainers	Belongers	Emulators	Achievers	I-am-me	Experiential	Socially conscious

1) Daniel Yankelovich, “Work, Values, and the New Breed”, in Clark Kerr and Jerome Rosow (ed), Work in Amenca: The Decade Ahead, forthcoming.
2) Ronald Ingelhart, The Silent Revolution: Changin Values and Political Styles Among Westwer Publics, Princeton University Press, Pnnceton 1977.
3) Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave, Collins, London 1980.
4) David Riesman et al, The Lonley Crowd, Yale University Press, New Haven 1953.
5) Abraham H Maslow, Motivation and Personality, Harper, New York 1954.
6) Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise, Mc Graw-HilI, New York 1960.
7) Arnold Mitchell, Social Change: Implications of Trends in Values and Lifestyles, Values and Lifestyle Program, Standford Research Institute, 1979 (proprietory).

We may note in passing that scholars in literature and the fine arts have been in custom of describing artists who are outward-oriented and expressing the values of production as “Realists” and artists who are inward-oriented and expressing the values of reproduction as “Romantics.” Our classification then is not original, nor is it a specialty of sociologists. In Diagram 2 we have noted some of the similar distinctions made by social scientists.

These three systems of values are nothing new under the sun. But their relative strength varies from time to time, from place to place, and with the demographic composition of populations. In the advanced countries of the West there has been a dramatic shift during the past half-century. The proportion of people stuck with the values of making a living has decreased since the 30s. The values of production rose to a peak in the 50s. In the 70s we saw a decline of the values of production and a rapid rise in the values of reproduction¹.

Corresponding shifts can be documented in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and Australia. The proportions vary, but the direction of the shifts is the same.

The ground-breaking decisions to develop nuclear energy and invest in it were made in Sweden during the 50s and 60s when the values of production were predominant. The decisions aroused little controversy. The issue did not become really controversial until the 70s, when the values of reproduction had become ascendant. The choice of sites for nuclear stations had been made in an earlier period when the values of production prevailed. Sweden did not therefore witness the battles over the location of reactor plants which gave a focus to anti-nuclear forces in countries that attempted to make their choice of sites after the values of reproduction had broken through

By the time of the 1980 referendum six reactors were built and construction was begun on an additional six, four of which were ready or nearly ready at the time of the referendum.² The nation’s involvement with nuclear power had a 35-year-old history at the time of the referendum. Its per capita consumption of nuclear energy was then the highest in the world. The amount of electricity provided by nuclear energy was about 25 percent of the country’s total consumption on Referendum Day, and this proportion was slated to rise to 40 percent within a few years − depending on the outcome of the voting. This long and heavy investment in nuclear energy had been initiated when the climate of opinion was dominated by the values of production. The anti-nuclear forces grow as values of reproduction became more widespread. They fought for and gained the opportunity for a nationwide referendum on Sweden’s future use of nuclear energy.

The issue of nuclear energy is one of the sources of conflict between adherents of the values of production and adherents of the values of reproduction. In interviews conducted after the referendum a battery of 60 questions was put to respondents in order to distinguish between adherents of the different value systems; in addition, we asked the same respondents how they had voted in the referendum. The voting, as expected, proved highly correlated with the values of production and reproduction.

Vote in referendum:	Outward-oriented individuals, expressing the values of production.	Inward-oriented individuals, expressing the values of reproduction.
“Yes” to nuclear energy (Lines 1 and 2)	72%	36%
“No” to nuclear energy  (Line 3)	25%	61%
Blank votes	3%	2%
	100%	100%
Non-voters	25%	25%
(Number of interviews)	(167)	(120)

We can draw the conclusion that supporters of the values of production generally voted in favor of nuclear energy and that opposition to nuclear energy to a large extent coincides with the values of reproduction. This is indeed a major cleavage in the controversy over nuclear energy, perhaps more important than cleavages of age, sex, class, region, et cetera.

Adherents of the values of production usually prefer a high-energy society, and those who follow the values of reproduction usually opt for a low-energy society. Women embrace the values of reproduction to a greater extent than men and more often than men chose a low-energy society without nuclear fuel sources.

The Typical Actors and Their Values

Values of sustenance, production and reproduction are too broad categories to identify the significant types that played different roles in the Swedish nuclear referendum. We shall, therefore, delineate some sub-categories and illustrate how they reason about nuclear power with excerpts from some 60 focused interviews conducted in the fall of 1979 and their referendum voting as reported in 347 interviews conducted two weeks after the referendum.

We begin by representatives of the values of production.

The Movers −  a designation that is used here as in “movers and shakers” −  are well attuned to the outside world. They are achievers who value fame and success. They are effective and a driving force in whatever field they are active, but also driven by their own ambition.

The Movers are self-confident and willing to take certain risks. They often assume leading positions, whether it be in business, in science, in trade unions, or in special interest organizations. They are interested in innovations in political and organizational spheres, but especially in those of a technical nature.

Movers give priority to productivity, efficiency, and economic growth. They constitute the bulwarks of industrial society, and they have a keen interest in the economic side of politics. They are conservative in the sense that they work within the framework of the existing system and strive for the rewards that the system offers.

As consumers they are connoisseurs of quality and sometimes choose luxury items that testify the success and accomplishment.

The Movers were strongly pro-nuclear. A representative voice is this male entrepreneur over 65 years of age, but still working:

“Oil is just as dangerous, fumes from car exhausts too, and I believe that if this society is going to continue to grow we must have more energy. ... There can be no growth if there is no economic growth to begin with. ... There are certain heads of industry in Sweden that I have absolute confidence in −  I could name two persons who say ‘without nuclear energy we won’t be able to manage.’ Certainly they influence me enormously. ... Of course, there should be a referendum, but I personally don’t believe in it. Most people won’t be sufficiently familiar (with the issues). .... The nations that build up their nuclear energy supply, they will have very inexpensive fuel. How will we be able to compete with them? ... with an unlimited fuel supply Volvo could increase its automobile production by 100 percent. (Not increasing our nuclear fuel resources) would mean that many industries would not be able to expand. ... I think those who say we should build 10 nuclear stations but not 14 are very childish. If you build four (reactors) an accident may occur, if you build 14, you get experience. ... The dangers don’t loom so large for me, it’s a question of (the nation’s) growth.”

Many of the Movers were dissatisfied with the fact that all options in the referendum put some limit on nuclear development without allowing a bigger or unlimited nuclear alternative. As entrepreneurs they were, of course, prepared to launch whatever energy programs the country wanted, but most Movers did not seem to anticipate anything but a nuclear victory. The most prominent spokesmen were industrialist Hans Werthén, Chairman of Electrolux, and Tor Ragnar Gerholm, nuclear physicist at Stockholm university.

Out of 53 Movers from the general public interviewed two weeks after the referendum 87 percent had voted. Their votes were:

Yes-lines	73%
No-line	23
Blank vote	4

The Status seekers search for an identity through others, but not among their peers: they want to identify with some admired group or idol. The role models of young Swedish Status seekers change often, and are frequently American. As they grow slightly older, the Status seekers tend to pick their models among those who rank high on the social ladder. They seldom have direct knowledge about their heroes’ actual thoughts, habits, and taste; they build their impressions on what people say about their idols or what they can read or observe in the media. For this reason their behavior and purchases may be more ostentatious than those of their idols.

Status seekers are acutely aware of social and financial position; they are fashion-conscious and rather materialistic. They are also very competitive. They may appear to be somewhat meretricious since they usually strive to imitate others rather than be themselves.

In politics the Status seekers vote in accordance with the class they aspire to belong to. A young technician employed in a multinational corporation, who lives in an apartment with wife and child but plans to move to a single-family home, makes statements that seem like an echo of pronouncements his superiors might make:

“How will we then be able to sell our products abroad, if we’re a low-energy society? I can’t imagine such a situation. Volvo wouldn’t be able to sell its cars. It takes a lot of energy to make a car. I wouldn’t work. In that case, some exceptions would have to be made, some would have to be allotted more energy-industries and so forth. ... Maybe I think most about my job ... I really like it, and I wouldn’t be able to have my job if we had a low-energy society. .... I don’t want to be taken care of by the state. ... I want to get along on my own strength.”

The Status seekers took the most pride in the nuclear achievement of the nation. They emphasized that Sweden would fall behind other advanced nuclear countries if the country did not use its nuclear investment. As voters they followed the lead of the Movers.

We interviewed 63 Status seekers after the election and found that 70 percent had voted. Their votes:

Yes-lines	75%
No-line	21
Blank vote	4

The Group-faithfuls want most of all to blend inconspicuously into their social situations and not deviate from the norms of their group. They are reluctant to move from their home town, and they want to keep their jobs all their lives, if possible. They become the pillars within he organizations they belong to. They constitute the infantry in popular movements, be it the temperance movement or the workers’ movement. They are family-oriented. Divorce hits them hard even if love has left the relationship. It is belonging to the group that is the key to their motivation.

In Sweden the Group-faithful often are steadfast believers in equality and solidarity. The Group-faithful would never stray from the party line at elections even if they disapproved of some party policies. In the nuclear issue they looked to their leaders, primarily their political leaders, for guidance. They decided late in the campaign. They did not relish the fact that the politicians turned over the issue to the electorate and tended to think that the referendum was unnecessary. For the blue-collar union members among the Group-faithful it became important to follow their leaders at LO (the Nation Organization of Trade Unions). Its Vice Chairman, Rune Molin, was an active and effective pro-nuclear model for them.

We interviewed 58 Group-faithful after the referendum. 72 percent had voted and their votes were divided in this way:

Yes-lines	66%
No-line	31
Blank vote	2

We turn to some types found among the values of reproduction.

The Reformers among our respondents say that to live with a sense of social responsibility is the main part of their catechism. They are convinced of the merits of their values and want to change society to correspond with their values, not adjust themselves to society. Today, they are often advocates of simplicity and conservation.

They want to maintain or enhance the quality of their daily lives. They do not rush through the day, but rather pace themselves in order to avoid stress.

As consumers Reformers are distrustful of advertising and critical of commercialism. In politics they emphasize global concerns, and they have actively supported many modern social and political causes: the Vietnam movement, conservation, disarmament, women’s lib.

Let us quote a young woman who studies education at the University, works part-time helping the aged and handicapped with their household chores through the Department of Social Services. Like many Reformers, she had faith in the ability of alternative energy sources to meet the country’s fuel needs. She is concerned about the environment and has a simple lifestyle that is not fuel consuming. She is concerned about the fate of humanity, of life on planet earth, and is completely convinced of the validity of her views.

"If nuclear power is prohibited in this country I’m totally convinced that we would be able to develop alternative sources of energy in good time. ....There are, first of all, different ways of storing solar energy. I know there are. ... There is wind power too. ... It’s possible we would have to change our society. I don’t think we would have to lower our standard of living −  at least I wouldn’t have to lower my standard of living. Maybe we wouldn’t have cars, not buy as many consumer products. So what? I’d be happy to get rid of them. ... There are no doubt things I could cut down on, but I don’t think I’d need to, you don’t need much energy for the interests I have. ... We will have to produce other goods. ... that yield more profit from a human point of view. They build nuclear stations without any consideration for nature. ... The biggest danger is, a nuclear accident. ... It is so diffuse, so hard to put your finger on, there may be damage that one isn’t aware of right away. ... It’s a question of this planet as such ... not just human life, they destroy plant and animal life too.”

After the referendum we asked 31 Reformers in interviews how they had voted but eight refused to tell. The others were divided in this way:

Yes-lines	34%
No-line	66
Blank vote	-

We had expected more no-votes here; however, the number of interviews is so small that the cited votes are a poor indication of the actual distribution.

There is little doubt, however, that the most articulate spearheads of the anti-nuclear movement were Reformers. Many were trained in other battles and had good channels to the media. Yet one cannot say that they gave the anti-nuclear movement a tight organization and a well-defined leadership. The leadership was everywhere and nowhere; there was no national hierarchy and no single person was indispensable to the effort. The formal and effective leader of the “No-movement,” Lennart Daléus, rose to the chairmanship from relative obscurity as information secretary of the National Academy of Science; after the campaign he receded into the obscurity of another civil service job in environmental protection. The anti-nuclear movement is organized −  less by design than happenstance −  to be invulnerable to attack on or removal of its leadership.

The Experience seekers aim to develop their inner selves through direct, immediate experiences, intense involvement in relationships with other people and/or with nature. They desire a rich inner life. Emotion and intuition are meaningful words for them. They do not look askance at astrology or Zen, and would be willing to give meditation a try: they are, in short, receptive to everything that can open new doors to the inner self. Experience seekers therefore constitute a rather heterogeneous group. Some of them seek intense thrills in suspense and adventures.

Like the Reformers, Experience seekers are likely to be adherents of equality. They are often advocates of environmental protection. They tend to regard national politics as superficial and are more inclined to get involved in local issues. The nuclear energy issue became an exception and it engaged them very much.

An Experience seeker who is a 23-year-old musician said:

“I’m not so interested in politics in general .... One can possibly vote against something, one can’t vote for anything. We hear a lot about the radiation dangers connected with nuclear energy but not so much about the dangers nuclear energy would have for the whole political climate. There will be strict security controls and things like that. It can easily lead to a police state.”

To most Experience seekers a nuclear society would impede rather than encourage their pursuits. Among other things they were more worried than others that the use of nuclear technology would foster a police state, in which they would inadvertently suffer. Even among Seekers of a very conventional kind, such as youthful members of religious groups, anti-nuclear proponents were twice as common as in the population at large.

We interviewed 58 Experience seekers from the general population after the referendum and found that 82 percent had voted:

Yes-lines	33%
No-line	65
Blank vote	2

The motto of the Self-faithful is “I am I.” They are flamboyant and eager to experiment, but are true to their predilections as long as their enthusiasm for them lasts. They have nothing against drawing attention to themselves, and their clothes are often eye-catching. In the 1970s the Self-faithful became so visible that the period was called the “me-decade.” In politics they are drawn to action groups rather than to parties. They seem to prefer to pursue one issue at a time and to do so with total commitment. This does not mean that they were emotional and without analysis when the nuclear issue engaged them. A self-faithful woman, 19 years old and an art student, argued like this:

“The thing is I think nuclear energy isn’t safe. I don’t have confidence in them. I don’t think humans can manage nuclear energy. If you vote “No” −  there will still be nuclear energy around but they will invest more time and money to try to develop something else. If you vote “Yes,” they’ll continue with nuclear energy out of sheer laziness.”

The Self-faithfuls more than others sported campaign buttons: “Atomic power −  No thanks.” Fond of pop and rock, they dominated the many rallies against nuclear-power that featured artists and poets. Gunnar Sträng, former minister of finance, himself a strong proponent of nuclear energy, observed astutely that “every devil with a guitar seems to be against nuclear power.”

Out of 24 Self-faithful interviewed after the referendum we found these votes:

Yes-lines	38%
No-line	58
Blank vote	4

We have also two different types of people who are governed by the values of sustenance. There is nothing in their value system that predisposes them to be for or against nuclear energy.

Subsistence minded are penny pinchers who manage to get by in a society that regards them often as on the fringe. They usually view the world around them as threatening and hostile, and they are themselves quite suspicious of others. They have little hope for the future. They have scant interest in societal issues and do not use their franchise as often as other groups. A male pensioner can illustrate their hesitations when asked to vote in a referendum on nuclear-energy:

“I haven’t really formed an opinion about how things should be. It’s hard to say who is right at present. Nuclear energy is not as safe as one would wish. ... I think Fälldin has said some very good things about it, I think he comes closest to being on the right side today, as far as I can understand .... I don’t think the ordinary man knows enough to determine whether we should have nuclear energy or not.”

The Subsistence-minded were the most uninterested in the campaign. Out of 26 interviewed after the referendum 9 (or 37%) admitted that they had not voted. To the extent they lived off farming, fishing and forestry they shared some aversion to industry and large-scale production and were against nuclear power. To the extent they were pro-nuclear city dwellers they were most impressed by the argument that nuclear energy was the cheapest form of energy available.

The few post-referendum interviews we have with Subsistence-minded showed these votes:

Yes-lines	52%
No-line	45
Blank vote	3

The Security-minded clearly differ from the Subsistence-minded in their more active and safer way of living. Security is their lodestar. They live carefully and guard the security they have managed to achieve.

The mature welfare state is their ideal society. They are happy with the social security network that Swedish welfare provides. As voters they would never conceive of “voting away security.” (“Don’t vote security away” has been the central slogan of the Social Democrats since the 50s.)

The Security-minded are dutiful and loyal. “You must” and “You must not” are important words in their daily vocabulary. They are somewhat apprehensive about experimenting, and as consumers they are first and foremost cautious. They look at the price, but are also concerned about guarantees. “Consumer safety” is an idea that appeals to them.

A Security-minded woman who works as an assembler at ASEA in Västerås and has two children worries about the dual economic and physical threat of the nuclear alternatives:

“It’s the economy (that I’m most concerned about), it’s a question of to be or not to be .... Society may just break down, one doesn’t know .... There may be a great deal of poverty, for we can’t all become farmers and live off the land. We have to have industry to manage to get by .... (What I’d like more information about is) the safety aspect, how it works, what can be done if something should happen, how quickly one would notice if something goes wrong.”

The Security-minded worried about the economic hardships a nuclear moratorium would cause. Would the country then be able to afford its welfare system, the cradle-to-grave social security? They were also concerned about the sheer physical safety of nuclear plants. This dilemma of the Security-minded came to dominate the politics in formulating the questions for the referendum and conducting the campaigns.

After the referendum we interviewed 37 Security-minded out of which 34 had voted. Their voting showed that in the end they had been strongly pro-nuclear energy:

Yes-lines	69%
No-line	22
Blank vote	9

The pro-nuclear side apparently won over this important swing-group. Economic security in the end seems to have counted more in their minds than the physical hazards of nuclear electricity production.

The eight motivational types we have sketched had different opinions on nuclear energy per se, but what is more significant in this context −  they offered different arguments to support their views.

The Hard Core of Reproductive Values

The nuclear debate revealing a clear dichotomy between outward-oriented population groups who supported the values of production and inward-oriented groups who supported the values of reproduction was also a battle between the sexes. Women represent the quintessence of the values of reproduction. While men voted 70-30 for use of the nuclear plants in the polls as well as in the referendum itself women voted about 50-50.

The connections between age and sex and attitudes toward nuclear power can be illustrated through the following percentages obtained in three surveys Sifo conducted during the last quarter of 1979. All respondents were asked: “In the referendum we will probably choose between two alternatives: to use or to phase-out nuclear power. The usage line means increasing our capacity to twelve reactors, which will be used throughout their life-spans. The phase-out line means usage for the present of the existing six reactors but a gradual shut-down over a ten-year period. If the referendum were held today − would you vote for the usage line or the phase-out-line?”

Opposition to nuclear energy was less in the higher age group. The difference between this and other age groups may be in part as counted for by the pro-nuclear position of many older women in contrast to younger women. Opposition was strongest among younger women.

To some extent, the debate on nuclear energy became linked with the women’s movement and colored by its discontents. A vocal group of feminists accuse Swedish society of being male-dominated (no doubt with considerable justification) and a fraction of these found in the referendum debates a target for several of their grievances.

In 753 interviews with women in October 1979 we attempted to distinguish between feminists and others. As feminists we counted those who said that women’s liberation was very important or rather important, and who said that they personally were very much engaged or rather much engaged in the struggle for equality between men and women, and who agreed that it is a true picture of reality to say that men suppress women.

In all, 11 percent of all Swedish women, 18-70, were designated as feminists by the application of these joint criteria.

Among the feminists we found a heavy concentration of nuclear resistance:

Tab 12

Opinion on nuclear energy3	Feminists	Other women
Yes, use	21%	35%
No, phase out	64	47
Don't know	14	18

Those who aimed their vitriol at the oppressive male saw the male-dominated field of nuclear power as yet another example of the imposition of male technology on a defenseless population and on women in particular. They alleged that males dominated the nuclear-related professions, and that they were personally invested in safeguarding their careers in technology or industry.

They further contended that such men had an advantage in the debate inasmuch as they commanded an arsenal of technical information that many women felt they were ill-equipped to counter. When men pointed to indices in the external world to buttress their arguments for nuclear energy, women often could voice only their strong anti-nuclear feeling − cues from their internal worlds − in rejoinder. But they could also insist that their cues from the inner world of experience had as much validity as cues from the outer world of financial charts and power plants.

In one of the in-depth interviews on the nuclear issue that we conducted in the autumn of 1979, a young woman expressed skepticism that feelings would be respected as facts in their own right:

“.... it’s (considered) improper to have an opinion without statistics to back it up these days. Therefore people prefer to say: I don’t know. But no one can condemn a feeling. It’s mine. Most probably men will then say: these women, they just talk about feelings and therefore we can ignore them, they can’t come with any concrete answers.”

Here we notice the usual claim of inwardly oriented people in their controversies with outwardly oriented: feelings are facts!

When some feminists were joined by factions supporting leftist leanings the pro-nuclear force to be combatted assumed a still more formidable guise. The dragon to be slain now had two heads: one was a male-dominated technocracy that was insensitive to the values of a person-oriented society, the other was male-dominated capitalism that was also impervious to the values of a reproductive society.

To rally women from all walks of life to join against this menace some factions of the women’s anti-nuclear movement appealed to women’s unique function as females −  their reproductive capacity as the bearers of human life. The contest between the pro- and anti-nuclear camps was sometimes reduced in the Swedish debate to an oversimplification: was one “for” or “against” life.

In the October poll of 753 women we wanted concrete evidence of women’s fears and asked the open-ended question:

“What injuries do you think might arise among those living near the Harrisburg nuclear power plant after the accident?”

The same question was asked in December 1979/January 1980.

Distribution of answers:

	October 1979	December 1979 /January1980
Cancer	48%	43%
Genetic damage	34%	32%
Injury to fetus	25%	22%
Birth defects	17%	15%
Miscarriage	8%	9%
Other	36%	35%

We also asked about radioactivity: “Which do you find to be the most horrible property of radiation?”

Not knowing how many years later injuries may appear	20%
Invisible damages	15%
Genetic damage	12%
Not knowing if you have been injured	11%
Cancerogenic	10%
It penetrates and damages without any means of stopping it	9%
Other	12%
Don’t know	20%

The most repellent qualities of radiation are the least controllable and discernible: not knowing if and when a possible injury develops (not even in which generation it appears); being injured without seeing or feeling it.

In-depth interviews also revealed that women  − particularly young women − to a considerably greater degree than men were troubled by the possible damages of radiation on child-bearing capacities and on the genes that would be transmitted to future generations. That radiation was invisible and intangible (unlike oil slicks and smog, for example) made the threat it posed seem all the more sinister.

Women’s own unique productive center, her organs of reproduction, has been described by psychoanalyst Erik Homburger Erikson⁴ as her “inner space.” Erikson suggested that this inner space is fundamental to women’s perceptions of themselves and to their modalities of relating to the world. It is, in short, fundamental to her psychological make-up. A threat to her physiological integrity through radiation that could damage her inner space could therefore represent an attack on her psychological integrity as well. Perhaps that is why the fears of radiation loomed particularly large among many of the women: Nuclear energy was like rape: uninvited radiation produced by male technology penetrated the woman’s inner space and destroyed her reproductive capacity. In any event, nuclear energy was decidedly viewed by many women as men's way of safeguarding or increasing material production by endangering the very core of reproduction, today and for generations to come. The literary critic Maria Bergom-Larsson wrote in Dagens Nyheter August 26, 1979: “What we do here and now will affect future generations ... while men just live their own lives in the present, the reproductive capacities of women will suffer. Pollution and radiation threaten our physiological integrity.”

While more women were impressed by economic and welfare arguments than by genetic arguments, there is little doubt that most women thought they had more of a long-range view of nuclear energy than men. We asked them:

“When women think of our using or abolishing nuclear power, do they mostly think of what might happen in the future to grandchildren and their children, or do they mostly think of what might happen here and now?”

When they were asked to give their idea about how men answer the same question:

“When men think of our using or abolishing nuclear power, do they mostly think of what might happen in the future to grandchildren and their children, or do they mostly think of what might happen here and now?”

	Women on women’s perspective	Women on men’s perspective
Think mostly about what might happen in the future	69%	28%
Think mostly about what might happen here and now	10	39
Both/and	18	18
Don’t know	3	15

 

This hints at another central difference embedded in the values of production and reproduction: the production perspective is more short term than the reproduction perspective.

A Value Shift?

In Sweden we have not recorded any significant increase in the values of reproduction since 1978. It would carry us too far into value trend research to document this in detail. Out of the Sifo battery of 50 questions that discriminate between inner world and outer world people we select the two that have been asked the longest, i e, since 1967.

Both are answered on a five-point scale:

• It is more important to have a rich emotional life than success in life.

• One should not dwell upon one’s troubles but push them out of one’s mind and think about something else.

Responses of agree to the former item and disagree to the latter item help us identify the persons who embrace the inward-oriented values of reproduction. We obtain the index values shown in the following diagram for the population aged 18-60.

Diagram 4

We do not know yet whether the growth in reproductive values has been arrested more permanently, or if the arrest is temporary. However, the arrest came at a very opportune point in time for the proponents of nuclear power in Sweden.

The Shadow of the Atom Bomb?

The large proportion of Swedish women who believed that the TMI accident would prove with time to have devastatingly harmful effects (see table on page 23) will very likely baffle future historians if − as now seems probable − it turns out that such injuries are minimal or negligible. The dearth of trustworthy information in this area from TMI was a greater misfortune than the technical breakdown itself, particularly for inward-oriented people.

But historians of the future − and let us assume they will exist − may still contend that the women who voiced their fears were on the right track. An exaggerated fear of the breakdown of a nuclear plant may be based on another fear, on the realistic fear that our planet will be laid waste by a nuclear war that fundamentally changes the conditions of existence for life on earth.

A singular slant on the study of the relation between nuclear weaponry and nuclear energy was provided by a set of interviews done with 35-year-old Swedes who were born on August 6, 1945, the day that the United States dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Public records revealed that 353 individuals had been born on that day in Sweden; during the period January 29-February 5, 1980 we were able to contact 229 of them by phone. These children of the atomic age had been reminded by the media on every one of their birthdays of the significance of the date. As a control group we took the 632 persons between 30 and 39 years of age who were interviewed through visits in the home in our regular omnibus surveys between January 9 and March 11, 1980. This is how the two groups voted in the referendum:

Voted	Individuals born on August 6, 1945		Other individuals 30-39 years old
Line 1	17%	>47%	21%	>52%
Line 2	30		31
Line 3	46		38
Blank	7		10

The difference between these groups may depend to some extent on the number of individuals in the sample who could not be reached, on the broader age range of the control group, and on the time the interviews were done; the differences may also be connected with the fact that one group was interviewed by phone (those born August 6, 1945) and the other group was interviewed through personal home visits.

Yet the difference, with its slight significance, was what we had expected: individuals who had been led to reflect on the atom bomb on their birthdays included as a group a greater number of nuclear opponents than individuals in the group that had not been confronted with pictures of a mushroom cloud on every birthday. This finding should be replicated by research in other countries before it can be used as a basis for tempting but questionable inferences. In any event, it seems evident that nuclear weaponry casts some kind of shadow on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

 

Part 2: NUCLEAR ENERGY IN THE POLITICAL, PROCESS

The Political Background of the Referendum

Most of the referendums in the world have dealt with constitutional or quasiconstitutional issues. Shall one adopt or reject a new constitution, shall province X be granted self-government, shall the nation join in economic market Y, shall a certain region Z belong to A or to B? Questions such as these constitute the lion’s share of the issues that fill the catalogues of the world’s referendums.

Sweden’s referendums have not concerned questions of borders, constitutions or markets. The question whether the Baltic island of Åland should belong to Sweden or to Finland was decided in 1921 by the International Court at the Hague, not by a referendum. In the 1970s Sweden adopted a new constitution without a referendum and decided without a referendum to stay outside the Common Market. Sweden’s referendums have dealt with these policy matters:

Prohibition  1921
Right-or-left-hand traffic  1955
General pension increments  1957
Nuclear energy  1980

A characteristic common to these issues was that they did not lend themselves rapidly to solutions through the ordinary political decision-making machinery. They became vital concerns among large groups of the citizenry but did not follow the right-left alignments that the Swedish political system is equipped to handle. The vote on prohibition divided the nation according to moral positions on alcohol, the vote on right- or left-hand traffic divided the nation between ethnocentrics and internationalists. The vote on pension increments opened a generation gap in as much as it meant that younger people would have to work to pay for the pensions of the older population. As we have seen, the debate on nuclear energy divided the nation in a new way: the proponents of production and the proponents of reproduction became the antagonists. The customary methods of forming a majority to arrive at a decision proved inapplicable, and the politicians were obliged to resort to a referendum.

In the 50s and 60s nuclear power belonged to consensus politics in Sweden. The first serious political clash over nuclear energy was joined in 1973, when a minority within the Center party and the Left Communists voted for a proposal to postpone further expansion of nuclear power for at least a year. Then came the oil crisis and soaring fuel costs. The Social Democrats, supported by the Conservatives, approved construction of thirteen reactors; the Liberals wanted eleven reactors. In May 1975, the Riksdag voted for thirteen reactor blocks.

Nuclear power was one of the main issues in the 1976 election campaign. Thorbjörn Fälldin, leader of the Center party, categorically opposed nuclear power. Through his emphatic stand against nuclear power in the 1976 election campaign Fälldin succeeded in breaking the long rule of the Social Democrats. The Conservatives, Liberals, and industrial leaders who really wanted nuclear energy did not protest against Fälldin’s attacks on nuclear power in 1976. Voting out Palme and the Social Democrats was for the time being considered more important than defending nuclear power. For the first time in 44 years the Social Democrats lost the government, and the Center party formed a coalition cabinet together with the other two nonsocialist parties, the Liberals and Conservatives. A Royal Commission on Energy was appointed to work out a new consensus on energy policy, but in the end it could not reach agreement. The coalition was sundered in 1978 by differences concerning disposal of nuclear waste, and Fälldin’s government resigned. The Liberal administration that succeeded him had the backing of the Social Democrats when it put forth a proposal to expand Sweden’s nuclear capacity to twelve reactors.

By now, the anti-nuclear movement had united and was collecting signatures demanding a popular referendum. Then came the accident of Three Mile Island<