Japan’s nuclear village

Kingston, Jeff

doi:10.4324/9781351139649-9

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…(Jasanoff and Kim 2009, p.120). We argue that in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the pre-Fukushima imaginary, which promoted nuclear energy based on the unlikelihood of a major accident (Morita et al 2013;Kingston 2012), lost prominence, and focus shifted to a post-Fukushima imaginary, which promulgates visions of reconstruction and revitalization, testifying to Japan's resilience after a nuclear accident.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Living Apart Together: Local Governments and Citizen Radiation Measuring Organizations After Fukushima

Kenens

Abelshausen

Turcanu

et al. 2022

Citizen Science: Theory and Practice

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Since the Fukushima nuclear accident, dozens of citizen radiation measuring organizations (CRMOs) continue to observe the nuclear fallout in Japan. Their activities intersect on a regular basis with those of the Japanese government. Recognizing the different policy levels involved in radiation measuring, this paper studies the relations between local governments and CRMOs. We examine how civic and governmental infrastructures initiated in the wake of the Fukushima accident (dis)engage with each other. We link these infrastructures with pre-and post-Fukushima socio-technical imaginaries. By doing so, we explore whether and how CRMOs challenge and reconfigure political culture in post-Fukushima Japan. We conclude that CRMOs and local governments have established themselves as separate infrastructures, living and operating in the same environment, yet apart in the majority of cases. We identify obstacles and opportunities for citizen engagement in the emergency and recovery process after a nuclear accident, and contextualize CRMOs within citizen mobilization after Fukushima. Document analysis, fieldwork, and interviews with CRMOs, local governments, and the Fukushima prefectural government make up the basis of our study.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Living Apart Together: Local Governments and Citizen Radiation Measuring Organizations After Fukushima

Kenens

Abelshausen

Turcanu

et al. 2022

Citizen Science: Theory and Practice

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“…The system remained stable through numerous accidents (including the Monju sodium leak and cover in 1995 and the Tokaimura nuclear accident of 1999 at a uranium reprocessing plant which killed two technicians) and companies failing to deliver promised plants on time. As a result, much literature has focused on this iron triangle, state coordination with the market, and nationwide political officials, known as the nuclear village ( genshiryoku mura) (Kingston, 2012). However, energy policy was not purely the result of national decisions.…”

Section: Nuclear Power Before Fukushimamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Fukushima effect at home: The changing role of domestic actors in Japanese energy policy

Fraser

Aldrich

2020

WIREs Climate Change

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This paper reviews the changing role of domestic political institutions, including local governments and courts, in Japan's energy policy over the 8 years since the Fukushima disaster, focusing on the nuclear and renewable power industries. We explain how a variety of hidden subsidies created financial dependency in communities hosting nuclear power plants and led to local officials hoping to restart nuclear power plants after the meltdowns despite wide‐scale opposition. Later, the introduction of a feed‐in tariff (FiT) brought a wider range of towns into the field of renewable energy, but vulnerable towns with weaker social networks continue to bear a large share of Japan's energy infrastructure. Courts, prefectures, and local firms have become intervening agents in the renewable energy market, but utilities have pushed back, encouraging the state to overturn the FiT and create auctions for renewable power contracts instead. With subnational governments and courts more powerful in energy policy since the meltdowns, and a variety of new actors involved in renewable energy, post‐Fukushima energy policy has become more democratized. This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Decarbonizing Energy and/or Reducing Demand

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“…Under this influence, nuclear power was perceived as essential to the economic prosperity of the country and was promoted since the 1950s through political agendas (Johnson, 1982; Ogawa, 2013: 21). In particular, MITI deployed vast resources to make nuclear energy a national priority for a country that lacked oil (Kingston, 2012). For instance, bureaucrats developed economic policies that rewarded cooperation with the nuclear utilities, by presenting nuclear power plants as a way of saving the rural lifestyle of small villages, notably affected by depopulation or depressed economies (Aldrich, 2008).…”

Section: Nuclear Monsters and Nuclear Saviorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post-political uncertainties: Governing nuclear controversies in post-Fukushima Japan

Polleri

2019

Soc Stud Sci

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This article examines a set of public controversies surrounding the role of nuclear power and the threat of radioactive contamination in a post-Fukushima Japan. The empirical case study focuses on the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan most influential ministry and, more importantly, the former regulator of nuclear energy before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Through participant observation of METI’s public conferences, as well as interviews with state and non-state actors, I examine how particular visions of nuclear power continue to affect the basis of expert authority through which state actors handle post-Fukushima controversies and their subsequent uncertainties. In its post-Fukushima representations, METI frames nuclear power as an apolitical necessity for the well-being of the Japanese nation-state and the common humanity. It does so by mobilizing categories of uncertainty around specific political scenes, such as global warming. For METI, the potential uncertainties linked with the abandonment of nuclear power have the power to trigger political turmoil of a higher scale than those linked with Fukushima’s radioactive contamination. A form of double depoliticization takes place, in which the issue of Fukushima’s radioactive contamination gets depoliticized through perceived priorities that are paradoxically depicted as ‘post-political’ – that is, in an urgent need for immediate action and not open to in-depth deliberation. I refer to this process as establishing ‘post-political uncertainties’. This kind of depoliticization raises ethical questions surrounding meaningful public participation in decisions that happen at the intersection of politics and science and technology study.

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Japan’s nuclear village

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Living Apart Together: Local Governments and Citizen Radiation Measuring Organizations After Fukushima

Living Apart Together: Local Governments and Citizen Radiation Measuring Organizations After Fukushima

The Fukushima effect at home: The changing role of domestic actors in Japanese energy policy

Post-political uncertainties: Governing nuclear controversies in post-Fukushima Japan

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