Fifty years ago the main challenges to large infrastructure projects were technical or scientific. Today, the greatest hurdles faced by such projects are almost always social and/or political, with their onset often triggering intense public opposition. However, public opposition does not always occur. Why? This project funded by the Science and Society and Sociology programs undertakes a systematic comparative analysis of community response to 30 siting decisions in the United States since 2004. The analysis identifies the factors and dynamic processes that shape variation in popular opposition to large infrastructure projects.
The intellectual merits of the project include contributions to three sets of research literature in science, technology & society and sociology. These include: research on social movements, research on the determinants of not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) attitudes, and research on the link between public participation and facility siting. By focusing on responses to siting decisions rather than movements, the project avoids the common tendency of selecting on the dependent variable in movement literature. Much can be learned from cases where little public opposition occurs just as it can from cases where opposition is strong. The project also explores the link between movement mobilization and technical factors, the latter of which are often ignored in social movement research. Finally, through the use of Charles Ragin's method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis, the study combines the richness of case studies with the inferential possibilities of "large N" studies.
The project has broader impacts in its involvement of graduate and undergraduate students in the research process. It also provides insights for policy-making related to infrastructure siting, and for stakeholders involved in such future conflicts. Since the country's infrastructure needs are growing, this research provides knowledge about what features of these projects stimulate community opposition and what procedures help to mitigate citizen concerns.
