Japan’s Nuclear Disaster and the Politics of Safety Governance

The Fukushima crisis has brought the nuclear safety problem to the world’s attention. China is the most ambitious country in the world in nuclear power development. How China perceives and responds to nuclear safety issues carries significant implications on its citizens’ safety and security. This paper examines the Chinese government’s promised and actual response to nuclear safety following the Fukushima crisis, based on (1) statistical analysis of newspaper coverage on nuclear energy, and (2) review of nuclear safety performance and safety governance. Our analysis shows that (i) the Chinese government’s concern over nuclear accidents and safety has surged significantly after Fukushima, (ii) China has displayed strengths in reactor technology design and safety operation, and (iii) China’s safety governance has been continuously challenged by institutional fragmentation, inadequate transparency, inadequate safety professionals, weak safety culture, and ambition to increase nuclear capacity by three-fold by 2050. We suggest that China should improve its nuclear safety standards, as well as safety management and monitoring, reform institutional arrangements to reduce fragmentation, improve information transparency, and public trust and participation, strengthen the safety culture, introduce process-based safety regulations, and promote international collaboration to ensure that China’s response to nuclear safety can be fully implemented in real-life.

China's response to nuclear safety pre- and post-Fukushima: An interdisciplinary analysis

The Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (1986) introduced crucial environmental legislation in the nuclear sector, focusing on protecting lives, property, and the environment from radioactive emissions. Later accords like the 1994 Convention on Nuclear Safety and the 1997 Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management reinforced this environmental safeguard. These frameworks are examined in the context of public access to nuclear information, with notable gaps in laws granting the public rights to information and participation in nuclear decision-making. The Aarhus Convention (1998) is significant here, providing the public with rights to obtain environmental information, participate in decision-making, and seek legal remedies. The Espoo Convention and its 2003 Kiev Protocol further enhance public involvement, introducing the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), which mandates environmental impact assessments for nuclear plans and ensures stakeholder consultation. The study also explores compensation for environmental harm caused by nuclear disasters, referencing various conventions like the EU Environmental Liability Directive and the Civil Liability Convention. It advocates for stronger implementation of international treaties, social responsibility in nuclear policies, and effective national regulations. The Indian regulatory landscape, particularly the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and the proposed Nuclear Regulatory Authority of India, is scrutinized. The paper underscores the importance of global collaboration to strengthen international laws on nuclear safety, waste management, liability, and compensation, promoting sustainable development while protecting the environment for future generations.

Japan's Nuclear Disaster and the Politics of Safety Governance

Japan's Nuclear Disaster and the Politics of Safety Governance

This book argues that the regulatory reforms taken up in the wake of the Fukushima disaster on March 11, 2011, directly and indirectly raised the costs of nuclear power in Japan. The Nuclear Regulation Authority resisted capture by the nuclear industry and fundamentally altered the environment for nuclear policy implementation. Independent safety regulation changed state–business relations in the nuclear power domain from regulatory capture to top-down safety regulation, which raised technical safety costs for electric utilities. Furthermore, the safety agency's extended emergency preparedness regulations expanded the allegorical backyard of NIMBY demonstrations. Antinuclear protests, mainly lawsuits challenging restarts, incurred additional social acceptance costs. Increasing costs undermined pronuclear actors' ability to implement nuclear power policy and caused a rift inside the “nuclear village.” Small nuclear safety administration reforms were, in fact, game changers for nuclear power politics in Japan. The book's findings contribute to the vibrant conversations about the rise of independent regulatory agencies, crisis as a mechanism for change, and the role of nuclear power amid global interest in decarbonizing our energy supply.

This chapter discusses the story of half a century of stable nuclear power development, from 1955 until 2011, and identifies the mechanisms that sustained path dependence. It stresses fuzzy boundaries and conflicts among pronuclear actors in Japan, as in a real village with family feuds. The chapter argues that Japan's nuclear policy history is sometimes divided into stages with the restructuring of the nuclear power administration in the mid- to late 1970s and in the early 2000s marking turning points. It shows that these reforms only changed the makeup of the nuclear safety administration but left intact the safety governance flaws that ailed the nuclear village. Understanding such path dependence in the nuclear power domain requires a closer look at the institutions that structured it. The chapter then examines collective actors (organizations) in the nuclear power domain and the formal and informal rules (institutions) that structure their interaction to explain the emergence and persistence of safety governance institutions that ultimately led to the March 2011 nuclear disaster.

By accident or by design? Pushing global governance of nuclear safety