Abstract
Following Sine and David’s research on the potential of environmental jolts shifting the status quo in U.S. energy policy, we focus on the potential for environmental non-profit organizations in Japan to shift the status quo through institutional entrepreneurial efforts following the environmental jolt from the Fukushima nuclear power catastrophe. We evaluate the institutionalization of energy policy in Japan both pre- and post-Fukushima as the context for examining the potential for change in Japan’s energy policy. We utilize mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods to evaluate the attitudes and strategic inclinations of privately funded Japanese environmental non-profit organizations. Following Dreiling and Wolf’s model of material–organizational dependencies versus ideological motivations of non-profit organizations, we develop a typology to identify which, if any, segments of environmental Japanese non-profit organizations might pursue institutional entrepreneurial (Levy and Scully) opportunities in support of renewable energy policy.
Highlights
The 2011 Fukushima nuclear power accident offers a diverse context, culturally and politically, for testing the hypothesis developed by Wise and David [1] that environmental “jolts” led to shifts in the status quo of U.S energy policy in the U.S following the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the resulting energy crisis
The result was confusion and uncertainty about the strategic inclinations of environmental Non Profit Organizations (NPOs), as it became possible for a pro-nuclear energy NPO to have a name indicative of a pro-renewable energy NPO. We address these questions by first providing background on Japanese NPOs and the Ruling Triad’s role in influencing environmental NPO strategic inclinations regarding Japan’s energy policy
Conditional trust does not nullify uncertainty avoidance but creates a greater willingness to consider change. This scenario, which applies in varying degrees to all Japanese Electric Power Companies (EPCOs), raises the question of the degree to which private, environmental NPOs can take advantage of potentially favorable political opportunities, as theorized by Sine and David [1]
Summary
The 2011 Fukushima nuclear power accident offers a diverse context, culturally and politically, for testing the hypothesis developed by Wise and David [1] that environmental “jolts” led to shifts in the status quo of U.S energy policy in the U.S following the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the resulting energy crisis. “the largest disaster in Japan since World War II. This accident is a human disaster which an electric company and the national government are very much responsible for due to a series of ‘underestimates’, such as that of the height of a possible tsunami, the possibility of a station blackout and lengthy periods of no AC power. We should try and learn from all of this in building a post-nuclear East Asia This would be the greatest lesson from the tragic Fukushima disaster and the greatest message to East Asia, the world and future generations.”
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