The Great East Japan Earthquake that struck in March 2011 was a disaster unprecedented in terms of its magnitude and the extent of areas affected by the earthquake and the resultant tsunami and nuclear accidents. Recovery and reconstruction efforts are under way to restore the lives of the victims and revive the disaster-stricken regions. However, one cannot engage in such efforts without proper investigation. This would involve questions on the definition of reconstruction, the setting of goals, and determining how the goals are to be achieved. To answer these questions, the theoretical basis of the policy for post earthquake disaster reconstruction must be clarified. If post-earthquake disaster reconstruction is approached as the recovery and improvement of the people’s quality of life, the appropriateness of such a policy can be judged by applying the sustainable development theory. This is because sustained improvement of quality of life − or per capita well-being − is the primary goal of sustainable development. Sustainable development can be assessed through the productive base, which is a determinant of quality of life. A societyʼs productive base is the source of its wellbeing (quality of life). An economyʼs productive base includes not only manufactured capital, human capital, natural capital, and knowledge, but also its institutions. Trends and changes in the productive base can be used to assess the sustainability and effectiveness of the reconstruction policy.

This article discusses how civil movements have developed to protect children from radiation pollution in local communities after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster. We focus on those areas that have not been classified as “Affected Areas” by the government, although local residents have sought to gain institutional recognition of the damage due to nuclear accidents. In this article, these areas are defined as Low-Recognized Disaster Affected Areas (LRDAA) .

It is important to pay attention to LRDAA in mega disasters. Existing research suggests that local communities with low-level impacts were peripheralized and neglected by both the government and society in the face of tremendous negative impacts as a result of the earthquake and nuclear accidents. In seeking institutional recognition, residents in LDRAA have difficulty showing the causal relationship between the level of pollution and its impact on health. This makes it difficult for residents to justify damage claims. The level of success of social construction around radiation pollution in low-level impacted areas determines how far and to what extent the Fukushima nuclear disaster impacted communities.

As a case study, we examine a civil movement in Ibaraki, a city near Fukushima. A series of petitions were filed by dozens of newly established citizen groups against local governments and legislatures, and the government of Japan. We analyze how Ibaraki local citizen groups have established their network, to which extent they have achieved their claims to gain legitimacy in social and political process, and the roles the professional experts played in those processes. We point out that the establishment of the Law to Support Child Survivors of Nuclear Accidents of June 2011 in the National Diet changed the character of the local political situation by transforming the local government’s attitude toward citizen groups from oppositional to cooperative.

In comparison with politics of other advanced societies, we can point out a particularity of our society. In almost all advanced society there are green parties in National Parliament, but we notice the absence of such a green party. The nonexistence of such a party suggests that the old type of politics continues to exercise a persistent force and dominates in our politics. As a consequence, that domination may hinder political forces of “New Politics” from gaining access to the party system. An analysis of the situation may contemplate the necessity of New Politics and the persistence of “Old Politics.” As a conclusion, we propose that for resolving contemporary problems (pertaining to the environment, nuclear power generation, etc.) and improving the quality of our politics, we require the existence of a party advocating the principles of “New Politics.”

This essay is intended both to examine the history of Tohoku in Japan’s modern state-building process and to sketch what paths the ongoing Tohoku region reconstruction process should not follow. When Japan started modernization, Tohoku was a defeated area, known as the home of the disloyal rebels following the internal Boshin War after the Meiji Restoration. The intellectual class was almost eliminated, and few public projects were introduced by the central government. People in Tohoku suffered from the central government’s lack of interest in the region. The government in Tokyo was dominated by those from South-Western Japan, who introduced national development policies more or less targeting Kanto or Western parts of Japan. It was the particular breed of totalitarian nationalism shortly before or WWII that brought the attention of policy-makers in Tokyo to Tohoku. During the period of high economic growth after Japan lost overseas territories as a result of WWII, Tohoku became a supply base both of natural and human resources. The development of Tohoku was, historically speaking, a product of pre-war and mid-war Japanese nationalism. The nuclear power plants in Fukushima Prefecture were all products of the strategy for survival of those in “backward” areas. As the Japan of totalitarian militarism or high economic growth no longer exists now, the position of Tohoku must also change. More local initiatives ought to be respected and encouraged. This essay examines dozens of reconstruction plans made by local towns or villages in the coastal areas of Tohoku and exposes the unnecessary influence of the central government in their creation.

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster has been a painful reminder of the exploitative nature of the Japanese government’s development policy that aggravates coreperiphery relations; nuclear power is generated in outlying areas, which are denied the possibility of self-reliant development and are subjected to potentially grave nuclear hazards. The field of development studies in Japan has long been silent on the atrocious state of the government’s policy and has instead tended to focus on dissecting the wrongs in ‘developing’ countries, often drawing on Japan’s path to development as a model to be emulated. In this paper, I explore means of rectifying this misguided stance and identify three possible keys to reinventing development studies. First, the infra-ideology haunting development studies, which pits backward’ against ‘advanced’ areas, should be discarded so that development no longer targets ‘backward’ areas exclusively. This infra-ideology has served to justify top-down projects that bring in plans and resources from ‘advanced’ areas, often wreaking social and environmental havoc in ‘backward’ areas (as attested to by the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster) . Second, the mechanistic worldview that artificially exaggerates the feasibility of social engineering needs to be dropped, in favor of an incrementalistic approach continually seeking to improve and innovate remedial actions. The mechanistic worldview has thus far justified the proliferation of quick-fix development practices (including ongoing disaster response by the Japanese government) and disguised serious social problems that are not amenable to quick fixes. Third, Japan’s submission to US political and commercial interests must be critically reviewed so as to bring forth self-reliant development that values the people’s well-being. Extant development projects help the US to defend its hegemonic role at the cost of people’s wellbeing (as illustrated by the US-made nuclear reactor, which the Japanese government, irrespective of the defects identified in the US, introduced to the Fukushima Daiichi Plant).

This paper discusses environmental and societal sustainability from the perspective of peace studies. After the Great East Japan Earthquake and accompanying tsunami and nuclear disaster, Japan faces the difficult tasks of both reconstructing and providing relief measures for disaster victims. This massive disaster deprived a significant number of people their livelihoods, and the lingering effects of the incident continue to haunt communities. Moreover, thousands of tons of radioactive water have entered the Pacific Ocean, and estimates concerning air-bound radiation are, at best, unclear. In the face of ongoing threats from radiation, and attendant health and environmental effects, the Japanese government has adopted a plan for “creative reconstruction,” which aims to revitalize the Japanese economy and the Tohoku district particularly. Although the government’s plan is supported by the general economic malaise, under the present conditions, individual 3/11 victims do not stand to benefit as much as large companies. It begs questioning whether this triple disaster disproves the theory of “Paxeconomica,” especially given the limitations of a modern society pursuing high economic growth.

“Development as freedom” is one of the great contributions of Amartya Sen’s work with respect to the capabilities approach. However, the global environment poses natural limitations to the free competitive market and neo-liberal theory. Some face the loss of their ways of life; others’ freedoms have the potential to expand. Sen’s idea of “individual freedom as social commitment” thus proves instructive when reconsidering the paradigm of development from the standpoint of human dignity and reassessing the value of community.

The Great East Japan Earthquake that struck in March 2011 was a disaster unprecedented in terms of its magnitude and the extent of areas affected by the earthquake and the resultant tsunami and nuclear accidents. Recovery and reconstruction efforts are under way to restore the lives of the victims and revive the disaster-stricken regions. However, one cannot engage in such efforts without proper investigation. This would involve questions on the definition of reconstruction, the setting of goals, and determining how the goals are to be achieved. To answer these questions, the theoretical basis of the policy for post earthquake disaster reconstruction must be clarified. If post-earthquake disaster reconstruction is approached as the recovery and improvement of the people’s quality of life, the appropriateness of such a policy can be judged by applying the sustainable development theory. This is because sustained improvement of quality of life − or per capita well-being − is the primary goal of sustainable development. Sustainable development can be assessed through the productive base, which is a determinant of quality of life. A societyʼs productive base is the source of its wellbeing (quality of life). An economyʼs productive base includes not only manufactured capital, human capital, natural capital, and knowledge, but also its institutions. Trends and changes in the productive base can be used to assess the sustainability and effectiveness of the reconstruction policy.

This article discusses how civil movements have developed to protect children from radiation pollution in local communities after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster. We focus on those areas that have not been classified as “Affected Areas” by the government, although local residents have sought to gain institutional recognition of the damage due to nuclear accidents. In this article, these areas are defined as Low-Recognized Disaster Affected Areas (LRDAA) .

It is important to pay attention to LRDAA in mega disasters. Existing research suggests that local communities with low-level impacts were peripheralized and neglected by both the government and society in the face of tremendous negative impacts as a result of the earthquake and nuclear accidents. In seeking institutional recognition, residents in LDRAA have difficulty showing the causal relationship between the level of pollution and its impact on health. This makes it difficult for residents to justify damage claims. The level of success of social construction around radiation pollution in low-level impacted areas determines how far and to what extent the Fukushima nuclear disaster impacted communities.

As a case study, we examine a civil movement in Ibaraki, a city near Fukushima. A series of petitions were filed by dozens of newly established citizen groups against local governments and legislatures, and the government of Japan. We analyze how Ibaraki local citizen groups have established their network, to which extent they have achieved their claims to gain legitimacy in social and political process, and the roles the professional experts played in those processes. We point out that the establishment of the Law to Support Child Survivors of Nuclear Accidents of June 2011 in the National Diet changed the character of the local political situation by transforming the local government’s attitude toward citizen groups from oppositional to cooperative.

In comparison with politics of other advanced societies, we can point out a particularity of our society. In almost all advanced society there are green parties in National Parliament, but we notice the absence of such a green party. The nonexistence of such a party suggests that the old type of politics continues to exercise a persistent force and dominates in our politics. As a consequence, that domination may hinder political forces of “New Politics” from gaining access to the party system. An analysis of the situation may contemplate the necessity of New Politics and the persistence of “Old Politics.” As a conclusion, we propose that for resolving contemporary problems (pertaining to the environment, nuclear power generation, etc.) and improving the quality of our politics, we require the existence of a party advocating the principles of “New Politics.”

This essay is intended both to examine the history of Tohoku in Japan’s modern state-building process and to sketch what paths the ongoing Tohoku region reconstruction process should not follow. When Japan started modernization, Tohoku was a defeated area, known as the home of the disloyal rebels following the internal Boshin War after the Meiji Restoration. The intellectual class was almost eliminated, and few public projects were introduced by the central government. People in Tohoku suffered from the central government’s lack of interest in the region. The government in Tokyo was dominated by those from South-Western Japan, who introduced national development policies more or less targeting Kanto or Western parts of Japan. It was the particular breed of totalitarian nationalism shortly before or WWII that brought the attention of policy-makers in Tokyo to Tohoku. During the period of high economic growth after Japan lost overseas territories as a result of WWII, Tohoku became a supply base both of natural and human resources. The development of Tohoku was, historically speaking, a product of pre-war and mid-war Japanese nationalism. The nuclear power plants in Fukushima Prefecture were all products of the strategy for survival of those in “backward” areas. As the Japan of totalitarian militarism or high economic growth no longer exists now, the position of Tohoku must also change. More local initiatives ought to be respected and encouraged. This essay examines dozens of reconstruction plans made by local towns or villages in the coastal areas of Tohoku and exposes the unnecessary influence of the central government in their creation.

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster has been a painful reminder of the exploitative nature of the Japanese government’s development policy that aggravates coreperiphery relations; nuclear power is generated in outlying areas, which are denied the possibility of self-reliant development and are subjected to potentially grave nuclear hazards. The field of development studies in Japan has long been silent on the atrocious state of the government’s policy and has instead tended to focus on dissecting the wrongs in ‘developing’ countries, often drawing on Japan’s path to development as a model to be emulated. In this paper, I explore means of rectifying this misguided stance and identify three possible keys to reinventing development studies. First, the infra-ideology haunting development studies, which pits backward’ against ‘advanced’ areas, should be discarded so that development no longer targets ‘backward’ areas exclusively. This infra-ideology has served to justify top-down projects that bring in plans and resources from ‘advanced’ areas, often wreaking social and environmental havoc in ‘backward’ areas (as attested to by the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster) . Second, the mechanistic worldview that artificially exaggerates the feasibility of social engineering needs to be dropped, in favor of an incrementalistic approach continually seeking to improve and innovate remedial actions. The mechanistic worldview has thus far justified the proliferation of quick-fix development practices (including ongoing disaster response by the Japanese government) and disguised serious social problems that are not amenable to quick fixes. Third, Japan’s submission to US political and commercial interests must be critically reviewed so as to bring forth self-reliant development that values the people’s well-being. Extant development projects help the US to defend its hegemonic role at the cost of people’s wellbeing (as illustrated by the US-made nuclear reactor, which the Japanese government, irrespective of the defects identified in the US, introduced to the Fukushima Daiichi Plant).

This paper discusses environmental and societal sustainability from the perspective of peace studies. After the Great East Japan Earthquake and accompanying tsunami and nuclear disaster, Japan faces the difficult tasks of both reconstructing and providing relief measures for disaster victims. This massive disaster deprived a significant number of people their livelihoods, and the lingering effects of the incident continue to haunt communities. Moreover, thousands of tons of radioactive water have entered the Pacific Ocean, and estimates concerning air-bound radiation are, at best, unclear. In the face of ongoing threats from radiation, and attendant health and environmental effects, the Japanese government has adopted a plan for “creative reconstruction,” which aims to revitalize the Japanese economy and the Tohoku district particularly. Although the government’s plan is supported by the general economic malaise, under the present conditions, individual 3/11 victims do not stand to benefit as much as large companies. It begs questioning whether this triple disaster disproves the theory of “Paxeconomica,” especially given the limitations of a modern society pursuing high economic growth.

“Development as freedom” is one of the great contributions of Amartya Sen’s work with respect to the capabilities approach. However, the global environment poses natural limitations to the free competitive market and neo-liberal theory. Some face the loss of their ways of life; others’ freedoms have the potential to expand. Sen’s idea of “individual freedom as social commitment” thus proves instructive when reconsidering the paradigm of development from the standpoint of human dignity and reassessing the value of community.