Dear George,

Thank you for your interesting question. From my perspective, the Kobe earthquake in 1995 acted as a catalyst for a lot of "fundamental changes" that had already started in Japanese politics. In contrast, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake response highlights many of the change that have taken place in both government and society since the Kobe earthquake.

As a result of the triple disasters (earthquake, tsunami, nuclear meltdown) of the past couple of weeks I think it is likely that politicians and bureaucrats will come up with some better ways to deal with the ultra rapid communication flows because of the internet, and certainly the IAEA will update its policies because of the same issues. My hunch is that these will be changes on the margins, though, and not "fundamental" to Japanese politics or society.

If anyone is interested in a bit more on the subject of disaster response you can see my op ed in the Hartford Courant and an interview on NPR, both done a couple of days ago.

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/hc-op-haddad-earthq
uake-japan-0319-20110319,0,3040908.story

http://www.yourpublicmedia.org/content/wnpr/where-we-li
ve-japan-one-week-later

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Best,
Mary Alice

Mary Alice Haddad
Government Department (on leave this year as an Abe
Fellow)
Wesleyan University
mahaddad@wesleyan.edu
Currently an Abe Fellow in Japan