Discourse coalitions in Canada's small modular reactor development
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Canada's pursuit of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) is analysed using discourse network analysis to trace the policy debate and evolution of discourse coalitions from 2014 to 2023. The study reveals a shift from early technical discussions to a policy debate increasingly focused on climate change, feasibility, economic benefits, and international partnerships. A pro-SMR coalition, initially composed of industry and provincial actors, expanded to include federal agencies, multilateral organizations, and foreign governments and firms, gaining influence through strategic narratives and institutionalization efforts. While polarization has decreased, contentious issues like nuclear waste, safety, and economic viability persist. The study identifies key actors who served as information bridges within the network and reveals how the coalition's narrative aligns with international discourses on clean and affordable energy.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.018 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.030 | 0.015 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.014 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".