The Politics of CANDU Exports (review)

This is an important and well-written book on a subject long overdue for a nuanced discussion. Bratt outlines the major factors that have been at play in the decision to export CANDU reactors worldwide. In his view CANDU exports have been motivated by both economic needs and policy concerns, with the balance between these factors changing in different historical periods.

Bratt first identifies several policy issues: the need to contain the spread of communism, nuclear proliferation, restrictions on sales to countries with records of human rights abuse, concerns over environmental impacts, and concerns over the extent of government subsidies to the nuclear industry. He then divides the history of CANDU exports into five main periods and considers the interplay between economic and policy issues in each period through a series of case studies.

Despite the appearance of a simple incentive/constraint framework, Bratt’s analysis is balanced and subtle, with a good mix of primary source documents, secondary analyses, and popular press sources. In addition, he provides a detailed summary of the public and private components of the Canadian nuclear industry, and the major international organizations and agreements surrounding nuclear technology.

Bratt caps off the empirical discussion with a short summary chapter. He argues that Cranford Pratt’s dominant-class theory serves to explain the overall dominance of economic concerns in the decision making about CANDU exports. In short, economic concerns dominated up to the explosion of a ‘peaceful nuclear device’ by India in 1974, followed by a period where proliferation concerns dominated, and Canada lost export opportunities as a result of a more stringent proliferation policy. By the early 1990s economic concerns had come to dominate again.

Bratt finds the dominant-class theory useful as it ascribes decision-making power to the pro-nuclear lobby, which was made up of members of Canada’s dominant class, whose concerns were often economic. The theory also explains why the containment of communism and proliferation reduction – two concerns that have been present in Canada’s dominant class – have periodically trumped economic needs, whereas concerns about human rights, the environment, and extensive government subsidy of the nuclear industry have had very little influence.

Bratt’s analysis of the interplay of policy concerns in the CANDU export story is exemplary. However, there are undercurrents to the nuclear export issue that are not captured by the dominant-class theory. For example, why was Atomic Energy of Canada (aecl) unable to use product diversification to respond to the downturn in the nuclear market in the 1970s and 1980s? Clearly part of the story here is the extensive existing investment in established technologies like the CANDU, and the potential for large returns on individual reactor sales.

But this is not the whole story, as aecl had access to commercially successful radioisotope and radiotherapy technology. The government chose to privatize the divisions of the Crown corporation that were commercially successful, and leave aecl the challenging task of exporting expensive CANDU technology in a highly competitive and politically volatile market. Decisions like these are not sufficiently explained by pointing to a dominant-class with economic interests, as these economic interests can be expressed in different ways.

aecl has been from its inception a company with the mandate to commercially exploit nuclear technology. In contrast to the popular image of government-owned corporations dominated by broader social goals to the detriment of commercial needs, Bratt has given us an example of how government-owned corporations have been thoroughly influenced by commercial goals. It is this increasing commercial focus of state-controlled technological development that needs more detailed analysis. Indeed, it is possible that the growing importance of neo-liberal market ideology in state decision making had a role to play in the dominance of economic concerns that Bratt has identified, particularly since the 1990s.

In conclusion, those who have little familiarity with the nuclear industry will find Bratt’s narrative intriguing and comprehensible, and those familiar with the history of the nuclear industry will have many puzzle pieces fall into place...