ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the foundations of policy immobilism by delving into the political and ideological dimensions of the policy framework within which the issue is being contested. It explores the phenomenon of acid deposition in its multiple forms as a significant, but uncertain, environmental and public health problem enmeshed in a web of other energy, environmental, and social issues that must be confronted. As a number of political analysts have observed, policy immobilism appears to be endemic to most advanced capitalist societies. One key feature of policy immobilism is the apparent contradictory situation of increased state activity coupled with decreased policy choices. Between 1976 and 1980, early political skirmishing over the acid rain issue took place at the national and trans-national levels. Much of the literature on policy immobilism has been linked to conservative or technocratic critiques of the supposedly growing "ungovernability" of constitutional democracies.
