MIT's Political Science Department has a decades-long history of assisting government and society in identifying, analyzing, and understanding the nature of public problems and appropriate governmental solutions. Many of our faculty have served in government or interact directly with government at federal, state, and local levels in an advisory capacity.
Drawing on intellectual resources from across the campus, our policy studies research blends theoretical models from political science, economics, and management science with analytic tools from a wide range of social science, humanities, physical science, and engineering disciplines. For example, the recent report The Future of Nuclear Power involved economic analyses of the viability of nuclear energy, technical analyses of alternative designs in terms of safety, waste disposal, and proliferation resistance, and survey studies of public attitudes towards nuclear power.
Currently, faculty and students in Policy Studies are examining the practical problems of formulating, implementing, and evaluating contemporary policies in the areas of the environment, science and technology, health, energy, drugs, immigration, export finance, and defense.
The late Professor Stephen Meyer's research effort on Community-Based Environmental Protection, funded by a multi-year grant from the National Science Foundation, explored how local governments and communities respond to complex scientific-technical issues in managing local environmental problems. Local communities are increasingly being asked to shoulder the burden of evaluating the risks, benefits, and costs of environmental protection. They are asked to make decisions that exchange local environmental quality and ecological values (such as wildlife habitat) for improvements in local economic quality. Meyer's research asks:
Directed by Professor Kenneth Oye, this Center for International Studies program applies theories and methods from the discipline of political economy to issues in science and technology policy.
Funded by a $2.97 million grant front the National Science Foundation Integrated Graduate Research and Training program and a £50,000 grant from the Cambridge-MIT Institute (ESD), the Program on Emerging Technologies (PoET) is intended to improve responses to emerging technologies by increasing understanding of the economic, security, environmental, and cultural implications of technological advances.
The Uncertainty and Environmental Decision-making project seeks to improve governmental and private sector responses to uncertainty by examining how scientific and technical information is processed and incorporated into initial regulatory decisions.
The work of the Regulation and the Management of Business Risk research group examines how health, safety, and environmental regulations affect risks associated with technology development, including financing, securing property rights, developing or guaranteeing demand for processes and products, and on securing de facto waivers from threats to limit market concentration.
The North-South Financial and Technology Transfers project examines matches and mismatches between international transfers of technology and capital and local conditions defined in both technical and economic terms.
More information on the Political Economy and Technology Policy Program is available on the CIS website.
The International Security group runs several research working groups in defense policy including: The Future of Defense Industries Working Group (Harvey Sapolsky) and the Defense Technologies Working Group.
MIT Nuclear Energy Study: An interdisciplinary study involving social scientists and engineers aimed at understanding the future of nuclear power in the United States and throughout the world. The study focuses on a simple question. Should the U.S. and other countries expand nuclear power to meet the challenges posed by global warming?