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Full-Text Articles in Science and Technology Studies
A Normal Accident Or A Sea-Change? Nuclear Host Communities Respond To The 3/11 Disaster, Daniel P. Aldrich
A Normal Accident Or A Sea-Change? Nuclear Host Communities Respond To The 3/11 Disaster, Daniel P. Aldrich
Daniel P Aldrich
While 3/11 has altered energy policies around the world, insufficient attention has focused on reactions from local nuclear power plant host communities and their neighbors throughout Japan. Using site visits to such towns, interviews with relevant actors, and secondary and tertiary literature, this article investigates the community crisis management strategies of two types of cities, towns, and villages: thosewhich have nuclear plants directly in their backyards and neighboring cities further away (within a 30 mile radius). Responses to the disaster have varied with distance to nuclear facilities but in a way contrary to the standard theories based on the concept …
Post-Crisis Japanese Nuclear Policy: From Top-Down Directives To Bottom-Up Activism, Daniel P. Aldrich
Post-Crisis Japanese Nuclear Policy: From Top-Down Directives To Bottom-Up Activism, Daniel P. Aldrich
Daniel P Aldrich
Over the past fifty years, Japan has developed one of the most advanced commercial nuclear power programs in the world. This is largely due to the government’s broad repertoire of policy instruments that have helped further its nuclear power goals. These top-down directives have resulted in the construction of 54 plants and at least the appearance of widespread support for nuclear power. By the 1990s, however, this carefully cultivated public support was beginning to break apart. And following the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 and resulting nuclear crisis in the Fukushima nuclear complex, the political and social landscape for …
Hatoko Comes Home: Civil Society And Nuclear Power In Japan, Daniel P. Aldrich, Martin Dusinberre
Hatoko Comes Home: Civil Society And Nuclear Power In Japan, Daniel P. Aldrich, Martin Dusinberre
Daniel P Aldrich
This article seeks to explain how, given Japan’s “nuclear allergy” following World War II, a small coastal town not far from Hiroshima volunteered to host a nuclear power plant in the early 1980s. Where standard explanations of conten- tious nuclear power siting decisions have focused on the regional power utilities and the central government, this paper instead examines the importance of historical change and civil society at a local level. Using a microhistorical approach based on interviews and archival materials, and framing our discussion with a popular Japanese television show known as Hatoko’s Sea, we illustrate the agency of municipal …