Complex Ties: Nuclear Governance and Governance for Supporting Evacuees

Abstract

Many people were forced to evacuate as a result of the Great East Japan Earthquake that struck on March 11, 2011, and the ensuing Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) accident. In this chapter, I analyze the process by which governance related to the institutional responses, including support for evacuees of the NPP accident in Saitama Prefecture, has developed, taking into consideration the framework and discussion points in research on the sociology of disasters and in the theory of adaptive governance. I did not only carry out interview and questionnaire surveys of governmental entities, support organizations, and evacuee groups, but also carried out the participant observation and action research.

First, analysis of governmental institutional responses in terms of evacuee support yielded the similar results as the conventional discussion of institutional responses in disaster sociology. That said that adaptive governance was found to be possible in cases in which mayors of local governments were able to exercise their leadership, cases in which local governments adopted counterpart aid schemes, or cases in which general affair-type sections within local governments having wide-ranging authority carried out the support activities. In contrast, nongovernmental support organizations were able to engage in more flexible support activities than their governmental entities. The analysis revealed that, by sharing information on problematic aspects of evacuee support, learning from each other, and applying know-how accumulated prior to the disaster, nongovernmental support organizations were able to provide “spontaneous” support and, as contracted parties, to deliver support services tailored to the evacuees’ circumstances.

Second, the analysis revealed the difficulties of implementing adaptive governance for evacuee support in Saitama Prefecture. This is due to the fact that Saitama Prefecture, despite being the local government hosting evacuees from disaster-affected areas, was not involved in the governance of evacuee support, and the fact that nongovernmental support organizations, which took the lead in directing evacuee support in Saitama Prefecture, were unable to play the role of “mediators” and facilitators responsible for managing logistics, protocols and procedures, and goals, which are central to effective adaptive governance. Although adaptive governance theory recognizes important factors for the management of adaptive governance, it does not discuss the capacities required of agents to exercise such factors or the social structures needed to bring forth such agents. Comparison of evacuee support governance in different regions is needed to identify the structural conditions required for the establishment of adaptive governance of evacuee support.