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

该奖项由2009年美国复苏和再投资法案(公法111-5)资助。这篇博士论文研究改进基金--由NSF的科学、技术和社会项目支持--考察了美国汽车技术的治理。在整个20世纪，汽车作为伟大的美国机器统治着，一个与美国生活和文化的各个层面联系在一起的物品，从经济周期到青少年约会的激情，从阵痛到足球妈妈的旅行。然而，汽车带来了多方面的风险：车祸损毁了车身，排气管喷出有毒废气，发动机消耗了日益稀缺的燃料资源。在20世纪60年代和70年代，美国联邦政府创建了机构--主要是国家公路交通安全管理局和环境保护局--围绕三个方面对汽车行业进行监管：碰撞安全、燃油效率和排放控制。本论文的研究考察了从20世纪60年代到80年代，当国家受到新的政治力量的攻击，政府官僚机构经历了大规模削减时，监管汽车的政府机构(即国家)的增长。虽然以前对监管的研究要么集中在监管远见卓识者的传记上(又名。政策企业家)或立法历史，本研究考察了国家如何通过绩效标准建立官僚组织和行政能力，以监管和制定行业变革。该项目认为，只有通过研究这些政府权力的微观实践，我们才能理解监管制度是如何真正影响其预期目标的。本论文的研究考察了这些机构是如何发展、学习和演变的，以及它们如何塑造了汽车行业的技术变革。该项目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；以及口述历史。该项目之所以意义重大，不仅是因为它填补了历史空白，还因为对监管和监管机构的深入了解对于潜在地塑造其他技术(例如排放温室气体的技术)和指导国内汽车工业走出当前的磨难非常重要。

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.