The Energy Policy Plebiscite of 23 Sept 1984 between the Expectations of Development and Critique of Growth: An Example of Event Oriented, Morphological Analysis of Society

An application of morphological social analysis to examine the sociological interpretation of a current social political event, the Swiss referendum on the nuclear & energy initiatives held 23 Sept 1984. Data are drawn from: (1) information on political behavior as shown by previous referenda; (2) questionnaire data on social structural & cultural characteristics of local communities (N = 1,655 Rs); & (3) interview data (N = 156 Rs) on consciousness parameters explicitly referring to the issue of nuclear energy. The most significant findings show that the establishment of fronts on the nuclear issues is not parallel to the classic conflict axes of political interests during the past decades. Some evidence exists that nuclear policy issues articulate a conflict whose general objective is to evaluate postwar social development. The degree of concern elicited by the nuclear energy option, linguistic & cultural variation, structural regional variation, & communal characteristics are examined as to their impact on the voting outcome. 4 Tables, 2 Appendixes, 24 References. Modified HA.