Problem+Definition

As noted by those in the emerging field of disaster science studies, major disasters cause massive disruptions in social and political systems as well as physical infrastructures that both govern and limit organized responses to natural disasters (Smithson 1990; Frickel and Vincent 2010). This was made especially evident with Fukushima, whether through the response of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) officials and engineers, or the health officials who sanctioned mid-crisis changes in acceptable radiation exposure standards. Less visible outside of Japan, controversies over nuclear power plant relicensing after the accident, food testing standards and distribution policies, and changes in the tax codes designed to enable collection of relief funds for the wider effects of the tsunami all point to the social factors that complicate expert response to disaster across a wide range of scientific and administrative disciplines. The fact that 2,500 disasters have occurred, according to a recent UN publication, since the year 2000 alone, suggests that there is a grave opportunity and need for broader and more reflective social scientific understandings of the role that various forms of expertise play in disaster mitigation, possible control and prevention (UNEP n.d.).

The dynamic of the Fukushima disaster immediately recalls past industrial disasters—the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, or the British Petroleum disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. In addition, the particularities, severity, and complex interdependencies of Fukushima and the Higashi-Nihon Dai Shinsai, and the profound ways in which the response to Fukushima was shaped by political structures and cultures in Japan, makes the crisis an ideal candidate for comparative analysis. Some of the most notable aspects of the Japanese crisis include Japan’s strong corporatist traditions and the mutual orientation between government policy makers, industrial officials, and the technical opinions and guidelines used to guide historic choices as well as the actual response to the disaster; the problems of natural resources scarcity in Japan, and its translation into policies favoring energy independence and technological dependence; and both the popular and public health responses to radiation exposure as conditioned by the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Conditioned as well by a national self-image of technological prowess and advanced industrial capability, Japanese disaster experts and officials have responded in unique ways to Fukushima and the larger Higashi-Nihon Dai Shinsai. The scale and complexity of the incident demand integrated treatment that will foster in turn the further integration of the various approaches to disaster science research, even as comparative differences create an opportunity for critical reflections, via comparative analysis, of the existing literature.


 * References**


 * Frickel, Scott and M.Bess Vincent. 2011. Katrina’s contamination: regulatory knowledge gaps in the making and unmaking of environmental contention. In //dynamics of disaster: lessons in risk, response, and recovery,// ed. Rachel A.Dowty and Barbara L. Allen (London: Earthscan).
 * Smithson, Michael. 1990. Ignorance and disasters. //International journal of mass emergencies and disasters// 8/3:207-235.
 * United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). N.d. //Disasters and conflicts// (Geneva: UNEP publication).