We cordially invite you to the next DIJ Forum on

Thursday, 14 February 2013, 18.30 h
Paul J. Scalise
The University of Tokyo

The Cost of NIMBY: Policy Images, Foreign Blueprints and Civil Society’s Assault on Japan’s Energy Policy

The political uncertainty of Japan’s post-Fukushima energy policy should not be surprising given the country’s energy constraints. Japan, an economic powerhouse operating within a geographically constrained landmass with virtually no independent energy sources to fuel and stabilize its economic needs, is trapped between two conflicting political
problems: a growing segment of the Japanese electorate who reject essential facilities such as electric power plants and transmission wires being built in their backyards versus an equally large segment of the electorate who naturally expect a stable, environmentally safe and inexpensive flow of electric power to support their high standard of living and industrial production. That both expectations are technically and financially incompatible has led to the current political challenge. This lecture places Japan’s post-Fukushima energy challenges and its public policy decisions into perspective by analysing them in cross-national context. Using heretofore-unexamined archival documents, microeconomic data, and qualitative interviews with key actors, this talk explores how and why governments in Japan, Germany, and UK pursue the reform of their electric power markets over a long period. It emphasizes how periods of stasis are occasionally offset by bouts of frenetic institutional change by forwarding the concept of “policy image”. The talk also explores the "real-world" financial, environmental and technological trade-offs of such shifting “policy images” as Japan now begins to advance renewable energy over nuclear power and fossil fuels.

Paul J. Scalise is JSPS Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. in comparative political economy from the University of Oxford, an M.A. in international economics and Japan studies from the Johns Hopkins University, and his B.A. in political science from Marist College. A former Tokyo-based financial analyst of Japanese energy companies and contributing energy specialist to several global consulting firms, Dr.
Scalise has published more than 100 research reports, consulting briefs, reviews, journal articles, book chapters, and OpEds in locations such as Newsweek, Asahi Shimbun, and Foreign Policy.

The lecture will be given in English. It will take place on Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 6.30 p.m. at the DIJ. Admission is free, please register at:
forum[at]dijtokyo.org or Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien Jochi Kioizaka Bld. 2F, 7-1 Kioicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0094
Tel: 03 - 3222 5198, Fax: 03 3222 5420