Normalisation of nuclear accidents after the Cold War

Arnhold, Valerie

doi:10.1080/14682745.2020.1806239

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Despite large-scale anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s and enduring contestation from civil society actors (Topçu 2013), French governments have shown continued political support for nuclear energy. In this context, largescale nuclear accidents are seen as a political threat to nuclear energy and its institutions (Arnhold 2021).…”

Section: The Role Of Hybrid Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chernobyl also gave rise to a crisis of the governance of nuclear energy in this context, portrayed as "opaque" and "undemocratic" and challenged based on the motive of a "State lie" in France of hiding and minimizing the effects of Chernobyl (Kalmbach 2014;Liberatore 1999;Topçu 2013). In contrast, the public debate in France following the Fukushima accident did not lead to a comparable political controversy nor governmental crisis (Brouard and Guinaudeau 2017;Arnhold 2019Arnhold , 2021. Public authorities remain dominant and legitimate information sources for the accident, and their narratives on Fukushima have not been challenged.…”

Section: The Role Of Hybrid Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Radioactive particles, information, discourses, expert judgments, and political choices must be contained in order not to "leak" into the public sphere and reveal the dangers and sometimes catastrophic health and environmental consequences related to nuclear activities (Brown 2017;Kinsella 2001;Kuchinskaya 2014). Historically, the origins and persistence of secrecy in the governance of nuclear energy can be explained by its central state relevance for geopolitical and military reasons (Roehrlich 2016;Arnhold 2021). Chernobyl took place during the Cold War, and at a time in which geopolitical competition and anxiety over nuclear technologies were central.…”

Section: Secrecy and Transparency In Crisis: Conceptualizing Public C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This shift must also be understood as an attempt by safety agencies to strengthen their autonomy toward ministerial oversight. The rise of a regulatory approach to environmental and health risks, nascent international cooperation on nuclear accidents, as well as the end of the Cold War and its political polarization at the international level, facilitated this shift toward a distancing of central executive decisions on the nuclear program from the everyday regulation of nuclear operations (Arnhold 2021).…”

Section: The Development Of Hybrid Spaces In Reaction To the Chernoby...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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From Secrecy to Public Containment: The Role of Hybrid Spaces in the Governance of Nuclear Crises in France

Arnhold

2022

Social Forces

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How do some large-scale adverse events receive major media coverage and become crises for public actors while others are treated as routine events? This article reinvestigates this question based on a case study of the media treatment in France of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents. Drawing on an original set of media data and an ethnographic study, the article shows how both accidents were subject to forms of opacity that limit their effects on nuclear institutions: Chernobyl has been treated through secrecy that leads to contestation of nuclear institutions, whereas Fukushima has been characterized by “public containment,” relying on extensive publication but low-priority and uncontroversial narratives that do not reflect the stakes of a given policy field. This paper explains the role of Fukushima in France through institutional transformations that public actors engaged in following Chernobyl to reestablish the credibility of public information sources and to monitor public debates over nuclear accidents by developing “hybrid” spaces, located at the interface of organizational frontstages and backstages. This case shows how responding to transparency demands may sometimes create new forms of opacity by reducing the epistemic quality of public debates while containing political crises.

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Section: The Role Of Hybrid Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Role Of Hybrid Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Secrecy and Transparency In Crisis: Conceptualizing Public C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Development Of Hybrid Spaces In Reaction To the Chernoby...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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From Secrecy to Public Containment: The Role of Hybrid Spaces in the Governance of Nuclear Crises in France

Arnhold

2022

Social Forces

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“…JURAKU and SUGAWARA • NUCLEAR SAFETY AND CONTROVERSIES RELATING TO EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS based on the Japanese cases, what aspects of safety are to be structurally ignored could differ depending on the historical and societal contexts in each country. In France, for instance, there exists some historical and sociological account of the ways of perceiving and dealing with nuclear accidents 82 as well as of constructing counter-expertise, 83 which may be beneficial for examining the French version of structural ignorance and for further international comparative analysis. The authors find the possibility to extend the discussion on this point in connection with the concepts by Jasanoff as mentioned previously.…”

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confidence: 99%

Structural Ignorance of Expertise in Nuclear Safety Controversies: Case Analysis of Post-Fukushima Japan

Juraku

Sugawara

2021

Nuclear Technology

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This study sheds new light on nuclear risk governance from a sociological perspective by analyzing cases of post-Fukushima controversies on nuclear safety and nuclear emergency preparedness in Japan. By critically analyzing how the three risk-related concepts and methodologies, namely, probabilistic risk assessment, safety goals, and the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information, have been interpreted, implemented, and/or abandoned before and after the Fukushima accident, this study identifies three common features that characterize Japan's nuclear risk governance: avoiding critical conflicts, proclivity toward automated decision making, and strategic overlooking of "uncomfortable knowledge." These features all involve ignorance of the dynamic nature of safety where addressing uncertainties, heterogeneous knowledge, and incommensurable values can be key for continuously reviewing the existing edifice of safety. By elucidating why such ignorance persists in Japan despite the postaccidental drastic reform, the authors both articulate the deep-rooted structure that underlies it and reflects the societal and historical context, and eventually conceptualize this ignorance as "structural ignorance" of expertise in nuclear safety controversies and policy processes. The results also provide direction for further research to solve this structural problem.

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Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 2022

Neu¹

2022

Isis

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Normalisation of nuclear accidents after the Cold War

Cited by 3 publications

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From Secrecy to Public Containment: The Role of Hybrid Spaces in the Governance of Nuclear Crises in France

From Secrecy to Public Containment: The Role of Hybrid Spaces in the Governance of Nuclear Crises in France

Structural Ignorance of Expertise in Nuclear Safety Controversies: Case Analysis of Post-Fukushima Japan

Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 2022

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