What role for nuclear power in Japan after Fukushima? A human security perspective

Bacon, P. and Sato, Mai (2014) What role for nuclear power in Japan after Fukushima? A human security perspective. In: Bacon, P. and Hobson, C. (eds.) Human Security and Japan's Triple Disaster Responding to the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis. Routledge Humanitarian Studies. Routledge, pp. 160-179. ISBN 9781138013131.

Abstract

This chapter brings a human security lens to bear on the energy-mix question in post-Fukushima Japan. In particular, two of the four elements of human security identified in the 1994 Human Development Report (HDR), prevention and people-centeredness, are mobilized. We trace developments in Japan’s post-Fukushima nuclear politics through the demise of DPJ rule to the advent of the LDP government, and evaluate the current nuclear energy strategy of the Abe administration. Using a human security framework, we consider the economic security dimension of the arguments for and against the use of nuclear power, and weigh the result of this consideration against a concern with the six other elements of human security identified in the 1994 HDR. We conclude that the risks and threats to human security engendered by the use of nuclear energy outweigh any benefits that could reasonably be argued to accrue from its use. The notionof prevention, so central to the concept of human security, performs a further ‘trumping’ function, in leading us to put a premium on the downside risk of the use of nuclear energy.

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