Abstract
Feedback from industrial accidents is provided by various state or even international, institutions, and lessons learned can be controversial. However, there has been little research into organizational learning at the international level. This article helps to fill the gap through an in-depth review of official reports of the Fukushima Daiichi accident published shortly after the event. We present a new method to analyze the arguments contained in these voluminous documents. Taking an intertextual perspective, the method focuses on the accident narratives, their rationale, and links between "facts," "causes," and "recommendations." The aim is to evaluate how the findings of the various reports are consistent with (or contradict) "institutionalized knowledge," and identify the social representations that underpin them. We find that although the scientific controversy surrounding the results of the various inquiries reflects different ethical perspectives, they are integrated into the same utopian ideal. The involvement of multiple actors in this controversy raises questions about the public construction of epistemic authority, and we highlight the special status given to the International Atomic Energy Agency in this regard.
Highlights
The complex “co-production” of knowledge and social order[1] has been highlighted in the study of judicial decisions,(2) regulatory science,(3–5) and policy debates.[6,7] the notion of “scientific governance” has undergone significant transformation in several institutional contexts[8]—with the exception of high-risk industries, where the trend has yet to manifest
There are suspicions that official reports extend the hegemony of prevailing ideologies and reaffirm existing systems.[12,13,14] disasters seem to be consistent with the conventional narrative of “bad management,”(15) and accident reports are “fantasy documents.”(16,17) some argue that the concept of feedback from experience stands as an alternative to acknowledging the irreducible threat posed by technology.[18,19]
The lessons learned are a function of the controversies that develop between such bodies, while learning on the international scale remains relatively poorly understood.[21]. In order to fill the gap, here we focus on the Fukushima Daiichi accident that occurred on March 11, 2011
Summary
The complex “co-production” of knowledge and social order[1] has been highlighted in the study of judicial decisions,(2) regulatory science,(3–5) and policy debates.[6,7] the notion of “scientific governance” has undergone significant transformation in several institutional contexts[8]—with the exception of high-risk industries, where the trend has yet to manifest. Limiting feedback from experience to an exercise in ideological domination hides the cultural roots and symbolism of the relationship between a society and its technology.[20] 0272-4332/17/0100-0001$22.00/1 C 2017 The Authors Risk Analysis published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Risk Analysis. The accident created social disorder, it did not prevent the production of institutional knowledge
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