Daniel Aldrich has co-authored an excellent article on post-Fukushima energy politics. Nonetheless, I do not think it is correct to claim that anti-nuclear sentiments, or perhaps more precisely growing safety concerns about nuclear power, had no impact on policy before the 3-11 quake. Rather, growing safety concerns and opposition from the public slowly dissipated the momentum of Japan's rapid nuclear expansion of the 1970s and early 1980s, with the Tokai-mura accident in the late 1990s being the most important turning point.
After Tokai-mura nuclear expansion halted and nuclear power remained steady or declined both in production share and capacity terms at a bit under 30%. Although the GOJ had a stated goal of producing 50% of electricity from nuclear power by 2030, it was obvious well before 3-11 that this goal was unattainable.

Also, this article, whose title after all focuses on energy politics rather than nuclear politics per se, might have said a bit about the DPJ's policy of replacing nuclear power with renewable energy, and the surprising embrace of renewable energy by the Abe cabinet, as well as Abe's (again surprising) support for breaking up the regional electric monopolies'
control of the grid.

These two points notwithstanding this article is definitely a worthwhile read.

Best,

Paul