Social Decision-making Processes in Local Contexts: An STS Case Study on Nuclear Power Plant Siting in Japan

Abstract

This is an STS case study of the social decision-making process on the siting of a nuclear power plant in Japan, from the point of view of a sociological case analysis. Energy technologies are critically important for industrial society but often trigger serious disputes through the R&D phase and the phase involving introduction into society. Nuclear power technology especially has provoked a lot of conflicts all over the world. By focusing on serious trust issues among decision-making processes and stakeholders, we found very interesting consequences and/or results of participatory social decision-making process in nuclear issues. As an example, we take up the case of a local referendum in the siting area (Maki-machi town, Niigata prefecture of Japan) and describe and analyze it to highlight the critical sociological factors involved in the application of participatory methods in social decisionmaking processes regarding technological issues. Through this description and analysis, we would like to emphasize the effects of the complicated and subtle structure of local context on the consequence of local decision-making processes. We then propose a concept, "relevant marginal actor," to clarify which actors play critical roles in the whole local decision-making process in which controversial technological issues are framed, and reframed.

Discussing Nascent Technologies: Citizens Confront Nanotechnology in Food

“…Even when great efforts were made to foster an atmosphere in which participants felt equal, with a facilitator to ensure that everyone got an opportunity to voice ideas, the lay participants tended to defer to the experts. This echoes the conclusions of a study of an engagement program related to the siting of a nuclear power plant in Japan; there perceived power differentials between laypersons and government officials kept the former from thoroughly voicing their opinions (Juraku et al 2007). In addition to the gap between lay and expert participants, it seems clear that power imbalances existed among the lay participants as well-backgrounds, especially education, age, and sex, created a certain hierarchy.…”

Theoretical Challenges for the Current Sociology of Science and Technology: A Prospect for Its Future Development

“…Since policy and participation are liable to become coupled with each other in the science-technology-society interface (Juraku et al 2007), the two frontiers are associated with each other to a considerable degree. By the same token, there is a general idea common throughout these discussions that the problem of knowledge distribution cannot be self-contained in the sphere of knowledge alone since it is inextricably related to the allocation of responsibility for something collectively decided in the actual science-technology-society interface, for example environmental regulations, a guideline for bioethics, or a site selection for nuclear waste disposal.…”

Religion and Disaster in Anthropological Research

“…Though the possibility -indeed the likelihood -of tsunami waves of similar levels were both a feature of local folklore, and predictable on the basis of the region's underlying seismology (Atwater, et al 2005), the construction of flood defences and the positioning of nuclear power stations in Japan has been influenced by a range of additional social and political factors. Principle among these are local political debates about power plant siting (Hayden 1998;Juraku, et al 2007) and the inevitable cost-benefit trade-offs involved in the construction of flood defences.…”