Why Fukushima? A diachronic and multilevel comparative institutional analysis of a nuclear disaster

Abstract

This paper aims to uncover the multilevel causes of the Fukushima nuclear disaster (March 2011) by shedding light on the history of electric utilities and nuclear power development in Japan, the location choice of Fukushima as a site for building a nuclear power plant, and the unwillingness of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to learn. Instead of reducing the disaster's cause exclusively to the tsunami beyond “conceivable hypothetical possibilities” (souteigai), I investigate, from a historical angle, the institutional factors of nuclear development, including the industrial and government complex for nuclear development known as the “nuclear village” (genshiryoku mura). Among the four major reports conducted by fact-finding commissions, only the Kitazawa Report and the Kurokawa Report examined how the nuclear village is associated with the disaster in terms of monopolistic structure and regulatory capture. Theory based on quantitative analysis with bad assumptions and without a history might lead us to negative implications, and causal laws. If we pay attention to history and the realism of behavioral assumptions (i.e., the unwillingness to learn and the opportunism of agents), we can mitigate the risk of acting based on bad evidence, and thus increase the likelihood of forming good policies for nuclear safety.