Poliscide: Big Government, Big Science, Lilliputian Politics

by Theodore J. Lowi

The provocative book, originally published in 1976 by Macmillan, provides a case history of public policy-making pressures that emerge when national, state and local governments cooperate in a project that virtually dismantles a local community. As relevant today as when it was first published, Poliscide carefully examines the web of political relationships that originally selected Weston, Illinois as the site of the world's largest atom smasher. It tells how the Atomic Energy Commission, the state government, DuPage County, the Midwest Alliance, realtors, scientific advisors, and local town officials played a crucial role in unwittingly uprooting this small farm community. The book provides unique coverage of land acquisition involving governmental projects; the behavior of scientists in governmental policy making; the role and the power of county government; and the way state governments lobby in Washington for public works projects.
This edition contains a new preface by the authors. Elliot J. Feldman, Gregory J. Nigosian, Jonathan Pool, Allan Rosenbaum, Carlyn Rottsolk, Margaret Stapleton, Judith Van Herik, Julia Vitullo-Martin, and Thomas Vitullo-Martin.

330 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1990

About the author

Theodore J. Lowi was John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions at Cornell University. He was elected president of the American Political Science Association in 1990 and was cited as the political scientist who made the most significant contribution to the field during the decade of the 1970s. Among his numerous books are The End of Liberalism and The Pursuit of Justice, on which he collaborated with Robert F. Kennedy.