Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

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 …