Doctoral Dissertation Research: Braking Detroit: State Management of The Automobile in The United States, 1966-1988

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。该博士论文研究改进补助金-由美国国家科学基金会科学技术协会项目支持-研究美国汽车技术的治理。 在整个世纪，汽车作为伟大的美国机器统治着美国，它与美国生活和文化的各个层面息息相关，从经济周期到青少年约会的激情，从劳动的艰辛到足球妈妈的旅行。 然而，汽车也带来了多方面的风险：撞车造成的身体损伤，排气管喷出的有毒废气，以及发动机消耗越来越稀缺的燃料资源。 在20世纪60年代和70年代，美国联邦政府建立了一些机构--主要是国家公路交通安全管理局和环境保护局--围绕三个问题来监管汽车工业，即碰撞安全、燃油效率和排放控制。 本论文研究了政府机构的增长（即，从20世纪60年代到80年代，当国家受到新的政治力量和政府官僚机构的抨击时，对汽车进行管制的国家（国家）经历了大规模的削减。虽然以前的监管研究集中在监管远见者的传记（又名）。政策企业家）或立法历史，本论文的研究探讨了国家如何建立官僚组织和行政能力，以规范和制定行业的变化，通过绩效标准。本项目认为，只有通过考察政府权力的这些微观实践，我们才能理解监管制度如何真正影响其预期目标。 本论文研究探讨这些机构如何发展，学习和演变，以及他们如何塑造汽车工业的技术变革。该项目是基于传统的历史方法，包括档案研究;政府文件，报纸和期刊研究;和口述历史。 该项目意义重大，不仅因为它填补了历史空白，而且因为对监管和监管机构的深入了解对于潜在塑造其他技术（例如，排放温室气体的国家），并引导国内汽车工业走出目前的困境。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This doctoral dissertation research improvement grant--supported by the Science, Technology & Society program at NSF--examines the governance of automobile technology in the United States. Throughout the 20th century, the automobile reigned as the great American machine, a object bound to every level of American life and culture, from economic cycles to passions of teen dating, from travails of labor to travels of soccer moms. Yet, automobiles brought with them multiple dimensions of risk: crashes mangled bodies, tailpipes spewed toxic exhausts, and engines guzzled increasingly scarce fuel resources. During the 1960s and 1970s, the United States federal government created institutions--primarily the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency--to regulate the automobile industry around three concerns, crash safety, fuel efficiency, and control of emissions. This dissertation research examines the growth of government institutions (i.e., the state) that regulate automobile from the 1960s through the 1980s when the state came under fire from new political forces and governmental bureaucracies experienced large cutbacks. While previous studies of regulation have focused either on biographies of regulatory visionaries (a.k.a. policy entrepreneurs) or on legislative histories, this dissertation research examines how the state built bureaucratic organizations and administrative capacity to regulate and enact change in industry through performance standards. Only by examining these micro-practices of governmental power, this project argues, can we understand how regulatory regimes have truly influenced their intended objects. This dissertation research examines how these institutions developed, learned, and evolved, and how they shaped technological change in the automobile industry.The project is based on traditional historical methods, including archival research; government document, newspaper, and periodical research; and oral histories. The project is significant not only because it fills historiographical gaps, but also because a deep understanding of regulation and regulatory institutions is important for potentially shaping other technologies (e.g., those emitting greenhouse gases) and for guiding the domestic auto industry beyond its current tribulations.