The common theme of the last several chapters has been the role of technical specialists and advisers in the evolution of some of the key aspects of the Brezhnev programs for land and water. Unfortunately, the cases we have just considered give us no single picture, because the findings point in two directions at once. On the one hand, it is clear that technical specialists have helped to create an “atmosphere” of new ideas about natural resources, capital, and the environment and an official rhetoric that is quite different from that of a generation ago. Official treatment of several formerly despised fields, and of specialists in them, has also changed a good deal. In several instances, their participation has been vigorous and seemingly influential, both in drawing official attention to a new issue and in shaping the leaders' response to it.

On the other hand, we have found that advisers and protesters alike have lacked the independent leverage to force a new idea into official currency unless at least a part of the leadership had already been made receptive to it by policy needs. For technical experts to muster facts and publicize them required the support (however covert) of allies and sympathizers in strong, established positions. Finally, new ideas, in the course of being converted into new policy, have been channeled in conservative directions.

What do these ambiguous findings mean? Do they point to any fundamental change in the relationship of knowledge and power in the formation of new policies, or is the relationship essentially the same as before?