Dear friends and colleagues,


You are invited to the next meeting of the PhD Kenkyukai, hosted by the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, /Tuesday, September 11 from 12:15-1:30 pm./


*Speaker*: Florentine Koppenborg （Technical University of Munich (TUM) /ISS）


*Title*: Power dynamics turned upside down: The nuclear subsystem before and after the Fukushima nuclear accident


*Time*: Tuesday, September 11 from 12:15-1:30 pm.


*Place*: First Meeting Room （第一会議室 [本館1階108室]）


*Access Map*: http://www.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/guide/index.html


<http://www.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/guide/index.html>


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*Bio*: Florentine Koppenborg received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Free University of Berlin in 2017. Her doctoral thesis is titled: "Reforming nuclear safety administration in Japan after the Fukushima nuclear accident: A critical juncture in regulatory practices. "Since October 2017, she has been working as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Chair of Environmental and Climate Policy at the School of Governance, Technical University of Munich. She is teaching comparative environmental politics, sustainability transition studies and global environmental governance. Her research interest is within the area of energy and climate policy, particularly related to energy transition ("Energiewende"), and possible conflicts with climate policy goals. She is the author of several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on Japan's nuclear energy and climate policy. Currently she is working on a book manuscript titled "The Art of Change by Crisis: Japan's nuclear policy 1955-2017."




*Abstract*:

The Fukushima nuclear accident eroded trust in the safety of nuclear power plants and prompted anti-nuclear protests. A powerful coalition of pro-nuclear actors centred around the LDP government under Prime Minister Abe, the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry and the nuclear industry, dubbed the "nuclear village" by critics, strongly opposed a nuclear phase out. Yet as of 2016, nuclear power made up only two percent of the electricity generated in Japan. Thus, Japan inadvertently embarked on a nuclear phase out despite a powerful coalition of actors pushing for swift reactor restarts. What explains this puzzling outcome?




In response to the Fukushima nuclear accident, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), was established to regain public trust in nuclear safety and to prevent such an accident from ever happening again. Standing its ground against pressure from the "nuclear village" to speed up the safety review process, the NRA forced an internalisation of safety- related costs upon the nuclear industry, particularly electricity utilities, making nuclear power a less attractive business model for many of them. At the same time, the new agency's transparency policy broke the information monopoly previously held by pro-nuclear actors. The "nuclear village" appears intact, but with the establishment of the NRA as an independent regulatory agency, it has lost the power to implement policy.