The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 39 | Number 4 | Sep 28 2011

1

Amartya Sens Capability Approach Democratic Governanceand Japanrsquos Fukushima Disaster アマルティアセンのケイパビリティアプローチ民主政と福島の大惨事

Sachie Mizohata

Amartya Sens Capability ApproachDemocratic Governance and JapanrsquosFukushima Disaster

アマルティアセンのケイパビリティアプローチ民主政と福島の大惨事

Japanese translation is available here(httpsapjjforgdataSachie_Japanese_Translation_20122_pdf)

Sachie MIZOHATA

Introduction

The capability approach (CA) pioneered byAmartya Sen and developed by many othershas become decisively influential over the lasttwo decades as a normative framework forassessing social arrangements social justiceequality and quality of life as well as fordesigning policies (Robeyns 2011) The CA hasalso been seen as a theory of social justiceseeking to reduce social exclusion andinequalities and to enhance global justice TheCA is probably best known for having inspiredthe creation of the Human Development Index(HDI) in 1990 by the United Nat ionsDevelopment Programme (UNDP) to annuallyrank countries by level of human developmentor well-being This well-known approach hasplayed a key role in advancing alternative ideasabout development and welfare rather thanGDP growth Thus evaluated in CA theoreticalterms countries like Japan for example may

not necessarily be judged to be rich althoughon paper by such measures as GDP and percapita GDP they may rank amongst the worldsmost prosperous nations

This paper has three parts First I begin with ashort review of the capability approachSecond I explore the ldquoyutakasardquo of Japanbased on the CA As the Japanese wordyutakasa (richness or affluence) encompassesnot only economic and material but alsosociopolitical and spiritual dimensions ofhuman welfare it links up with the theoreticalinsights of the capability approach Third Iturn to Sens important work on famines inauthoritarian regimes to consider by analogyexposure to radiation in order to reflect on theongoing nuclear disaster in Fukushima

The Capability Approach

Let us briefly review the capability approach(focusing on Sens vision) One of Sens majorcontributions lies in framing a distinctparadigm for interpersonalinter-countrycomparisons of welfare shifting away fromtraditional approaches which measure socialprogress and well-being using a narrow focuson opulence (ie GDP expansion) primarygoods and uti l it ies By contrast Senunderstands human wel l -be ing as amultidimensional phenomenon that cannot becaptured by a single indicator such as incomeHence he proposes enlarging the informationalspace in assessments o f we l l -be ingachievements with emphasis on two conceptsfunctionings and capabilities

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

2

In Sens view the life of a person consists of ldquoasequence of things the person does or states ofbeing he or she achieves and these constitute acollection of functionings ndash doings and beingsthe person achievesrdquo (Sen amp Dregraveze India1999 p10) In other words functionings referto ldquothe various things a person may value doingor beingrdquo (Sen 1999 p75) or the valuableactivities and states constitutive of a personswell-being Examples of functionings includeboth basic and complex achievements such asliving long being adequately nourishedenjoying good health being happy having self-respect and participating in social and politicalactivities in the community Functioning isclosely related to another core conceptcapability ldquoCapability refers to the alternative[reachable] combinations of functionings fromwhich a person can choose Thus the notion ofcapability is essentially one of freedom ndash therange of options a person has in deciding whatkind of a life to leadrdquo (Sen amp Dregraveze India1999 pp 10-11) In other words capabilitiesrefer to genuine freedoms a person ldquoenjoys tolead the kind of life he or she has reason tovaluerdquo (Sen 1999 p87) An obvious example ofcapability deprivation is starvation assuming aperson considers getting enough food andnutrition to be a valuable state The CA makesa clear distinction between someone destitutehaving no food for a long time and someonewith a decent income dieting or fasting inpracticing ones religious faith The latter hasthe freedom to resume a normal diet while theformer has no freedom of choice One of thecapabilities CA researchers have recently givenspecial attention to is ldquoexternal capabilitiesrdquoldquothat describe cases in which a person is ableto achieve additional functionings through adirect connection with another personrdquo (Fosteramp Handy 2008 p4) A familiar example ofexternal capabilities in developed countries canbe a housebound grandmother who wishes tohave social contact and mental stimulus andgains the external capability with the help ofher granddaughter of using ldquothe Internet [that]may offer a significant means of social

participationrdquo and of expanding her ownhorizons (Atkinson Cantillon Marlier amp Nolan2002 p180) Hence we can see thatInformation and Communications Technology(ICT) can be instrumental for humandevelopment and social change

So how well has the capability approach beenknown and employed in Japan The conceptualand theoretical foundations of the CA may notbe widely known The term ldquocapabilityapproachrdquo was first translated into Japanese asldquosenzai nouryoku approachrdquo and is stillsometimes referred as it is Even in a publicexchange of letters of Oe Kenzaburo withAmartya Sen (whose letters were translatedback and forth between Japanese and Englishby a third person) Oe adopts the word ldquosenzainouryokurdquo (see Bouryoku ni sakaratte kakuAsahi Shimbun Sha 2006) Senzai nouryokudenotes hidden abilities or qualities that maybe potentially developed which conveysmisleading meanings distinct from Senrsquosconcept of capabilities Furthermore it isquestionable that the CA has been widelyadopted in policy analyses and designs givenJapanrsquos ldquoGDP fetishismrdquo and preference forclosed-door politics as opposed to Senrsquosrecommendation to place public deliberationparticipation and scrutiny at the heart of policydevelopment and implementation

Human Development Report 2011 was releasedon November 2 2011 Japan was ranked 12th

among 187 countries and nations with ldquoveryhigh human developmentrdquo At least two issuesbear noting here First Human DevelopmentReport is still work in progress and may notperfectly capture the complex social reality ofJapan or any other country in a numberHuman Development Index (HDI) wasoriginated when a renowned Pakistanieconomist the late Mahbub ul Haq asked andpersuaded his reluctant friend Sen to makesomething ldquoas equally vulgar as GDPrdquo to putthe idea of quality of life into action and to gainvisibility and publicity from political leaders

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

3

and the media1 Second Inequality-adjustedHDI and Multidimensional Poverty Index werenot included in Japanrsquos report2 When theseindices are taken into account as we willexamine in the following section Japanrsquosrankings would likely be lowered

In sum in Sens capability approach humanwell-being should be assessed in light ofindividuals social economic and politicalenvironment as well as two elementsfunctionings (to put it simply what one isactually able to do and to be) and capabilities(what one could do and be) Capabilities referto the substantive freedoms to pursue adifferent combination of functionings chosen byan individual This definition leads to an ex anteperspective that well-being needs to beassessed prior to a persons choice andbehavior (here I do not go into the details ofmeasurement issues) Hence freedoms are alsoone of the key components of this approachSen does not favor or advocate a particularconcept of the good life but rather emphasizesthe importance of freedoms that eachindividual exercises concerning the options thatmatter most to her or him He therefore seesand advocates the expansion of a range ofgenuine freedoms and choices to eachindividual understood as human development

Is Japan a truly rich country

The approach can provide a theoretical basisfor critically analyzing Japan in light ofyutakasa As Sen puts it quite well ldquoA countrycan be very rich in conventional economicterms (ie in terms of the value of commoditiesproduced per capita) and still be very poor inthe achieved quality of human liferdquo (Sen 2005pp 3-4 emphasis added) Why can a countrywith plenty of money be very poor Or putdifferently why does the capability approachnot regard high income (or GDP per capita) asa reliable proxy for individual (or societal)advantage At least four answers can be givenFirst of all we need to take into account

conversion factors obtaining resources such asgoods and services is one thing and convertingthem into a functioning realm is another thingFor example a bicycle makes it possible tomove around freely The mere possession of abicycle does not in itself however assure thisfunctioning of mobility An individual with ahandicap would have difficulty in actuallyconverting this resource into mobilitySimilarly a country may be very good atachieving high economic growth but may notbe able to convert the national income tofunctionings such as to assure well-being forthe population In fact many Japanese mayhave wondered if the country is so wealthy orldquoyutakardquo why can they not afford more safetysecurity wellness or happiness3 than others(Nathan 2004)

Second an exclusive focus on GDP orGDPperson is not sufficient because well-beinghas been recognized as a multidimensionalphenomenon that cannot be reduced to wealthor income These measures also fail to indicatehow well people live and how equally economicresources or functionings are distributedamong individual households and differentsocial groups The evidence of this argument ondistributive justice can be found in the issues ofkakusa shakai (disparity or social inequality) ofJapan which have been hotly debated in recentyears (see Tachibanaki 2006 Yamada 2007Slater 2010) Indeed ldquoJapans level of poverty(meaning people who live on less than half themedian income) is still the 4th highest acrossthe OECD areardquo4 Those living below the levelof poverty can hardly be considered to have adecent standard of living Another example of agrossly uneven development gap is kaso areasthat ldquohave experienced a significant populationloss whereby the area has experienceddeclines in its vitality and is in a lower level interms of production funct ioning andinfrastructures related to daily livingcompared to other areasrdquo (David DusinberreEvans Matanle amp Mizohata 2011 p17)These predominantly rural areas whose

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

4

populations are disproportionately composed ofolder people lag behind in standards of livingcompared to the rest of the population andmake up more than half of Japanese territoryLacking viable alternatives for economicsurvival these are precisely the areas that havebeen lured with generous subsidies as ldquoidealrdquoconstruction locations for nuclear power plantsdesigned to transmit electricity to urban areasThis describes the spatial structure of socialinjustice whereby urban areas enjoy highconsumption of electricity whereas kaso areasare reduced to ldquoa meansrdquo of electric powergeneration and pursuing the subsidies that aswe will show imperil rural locals Moreoverexecutives of the electric power companiesfeather their own nest (amakudari) whilesubcontract workers many of them hailingfrom kaso areas are discarded as ldquonucleargypsiesrdquo or the temps on the move who do dirtydangerous work for a pittance (Jobin 2011)

Kaso map Dark areas are kaso areasSource kaso taisakuno genkyo (The PresentState of Kaso Measures) (2007 p 16) byM i n i s t r y o f I n t e r n a l A f f a i r s a n dCommunications Japan

Japans major nuclear power plants and thecenters for nuclear waste disposal

Third there seems to be some confusionbetween opulence and societal well-being inJapan Amartya Sen writes as follows ldquoHumanbeings are the agents beneficiaries andadjudicators of progress but they also happento be ndash directly or indirectly ndash the primarymeans of all production This dual role ofhuman beings provides a rich ground forconfusion of ends and means in planning andpolicy-makingrdquo (Sen 2005 p 3) Sen clearlydistinguishes between economic prosperity andhuman well-being ldquoFirst economic prosperityis no more than one of the means to enrichingthe lives of people It is a foundationalconfusion to give it the status of an endSecondly even as a means merely enhancingaverage economic opulence can be quiteinefficient in the pursuit of the really valuableendsrdquo (ibid p 4)

Japan may have long suffered ldquocostlyconfusions of ends and meansrdquo against whichSen warned (Sen 2005 p 4) GavanMcCormack wri tes ldquoNominal ly theConstitution of 1947 declared the peoplesovereign but the promise remains to be

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

5

fulfilled Long seen as the favored child andmajor beneficiary of the Cold War Japan looksincreasingly like its orphan unsure of itsidentity lacking a sense of direction driftingunable to conceive of a goal beyond GDPexpansion yet increasingly dissatisfied with itrdquo(McCormack 2001 xii) In fact there havebeen policies of drift where public-worksprojects have been seen as an importantldquomeansrdquo for economic growth Japan spent$63 trillion on construction-related publicinvestment between 1991 and September of[2008] rdquo during a period when public spendingwas slashed and budget deficits dramaticallyincreased (NY Times February 5 2009) It iswell known that Japanrsquos rural areas are litteredwith many pork-barrel projects of hakomonoand other buildings (white elephants or eerieempty gestures) (for more details see FeldhoffMizohata Seaton 2011) Much infrastructurespending has been a monumental waste withnumerous bridges breakwaters dams androads having been built in areas devoid of theeconomically active population socialinteraction and traffic These hakomono maybe instrumentally significant for certainlocalsndashespecially people with vested interestsbut they carry no intrinsic importance for thewell-being of the local people and are irrelevantto todays knowledge-based economyMeanwhile the importance of education forinstance has been neglected A former vicepresident of the World Bank Nishimizu Miekopoints out5 that Japanrsquos educational standardshave been degenerating for the last twentyyears and its system offers greatly reducedopportunities for students from sociallydisadvantaged backgrounds Her argument canbe reinforced by Abe Ayarsquos empirical evidenceon child poverty and social exclusion (Abe2008) In a misguided pursuit of ldquoyutakanardquosociety the government has sacrificed thequality of life of people and their long-termbenefits and opportunities

Yet preoccupation with economic growth atsacrifice of well-being remains dominant and

pervasive In the aftermath of the Great EastJapan Earthquake many authorities and pro-nuclear groups continue to insist that Japanrsquoseconomy would be mired in prolonged declineand stagnation if the nation quits nuclearpower ldquothe Institute of Energy Economics ofJapan estimated that the countryrsquos grossdomestic product could go down as much as36 per cent if no reactors were allowed torestart a no-nuclear scenario would lead to arise in jobless claims by 197000rdquo6 Theydiscuss the issues as if there were noalternative energy sources to generateelectricity as well as employment opportunitiesThese examples of the use of growth- andprofit-oriented incentives show that the clearidentification of ends (namely Japanesepeoples welfare) and making the plight ofpeople affected by nuclear radiation an urgentpolitical issue have been largely ignored inpolicy design Similarly a counter-argumentcan be drawn from the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussireport which argues persuasively thatincreased fuel consumption would not onlyincrease economic growth figures but also forexample boost pollution and result in trafficjams and accidents In short these numbers donot necessarily reflect the objective of movingtowards social progress and sustainabledevelopment (Stiglitz Sen amp Fitoussi 2009)

Fourth just as the CA shows that conventionalmeasures of wel l -being often ignoreinequalities and injustice it also notes theimportance of sustainability Atkinson et alwrite ldquoSocial indicators may be forward-looking People are excluded not just becausethey are currently without a job or income butalso because they have little prospects for thefuture Social exclusion is a matter not only ofex post trajectories but also of ex anteexpectationsrdquo (Atkinson Cantillon Marlier ampNolan 2002 p32) This suggests that issues ofsocial exclusion and inequality are linked to the(un)likelihood of future improvement andempowerment This brings us to issues ofnuclear power and radiation In the wake of the

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

6

311 earthquake tsunami and nuclear powermeltdown radioactive materials have heavilycontaminated the soil water air and food inthe Tohoku and Kanto regions and may enterthe food chain To make matters worse thesesubstances as in the case of Cesium-137 withits thirty year half-life will linger for decadesand profoundly affect peoples well-being TheNew York Times (August 8 2011) reported onthe immediate consequences for children inareas heavily affected by radiation ldquoTens ofthousands of children are being kept insideschool buildings this hot summer where somewear masks even though the windows are keptshut Many will soon be wearing individualdosimeters to track their exposure toradiationrdquo Similarly the Tokyo Shimbun(August 18 2011) reported on 37 letters fromthe children of Fukushima written togovernmental officials They wrote ldquoI wish toplay outside and breathe clean airrdquo ldquoI wishradiation to be gone I wish to be able to keep adogrdquo (5th grade girl) ldquoCan I give birth to anormal baby To what age will I be able toliverdquo (5th grade girl) Reflecting on questions ofinter-generational injustice the legacy of thecurrent generation of adults is to leave futuregenerations to bear the burden of nucleardisaster far into the future as documented byfilmmaker Michael Madsens Into Eternitywhich shows Finlandrsquos effort to dispose ofnuclear waste There the safe storage ofnuclear waste will require 100000 years beforeit becomes harmless

Rei Shivas photo shows the deserted town ofFutaba inside the 20-kilometer evacuationzone in Fukushima prefecture The irony is thatthe crossroad sign saying ldquoWith correctunderstanding of nuclear (we have) a yutakanalivingrdquo Another photographer Ota Yasusukeshows in his blog the photos of the companionanimals unintentionally abandoned after 311

We have reflected on the limits of economic-centered measurements for determiningwhether a country is rich and its people have asuperior quality of life Also we have reviewedSenrsquos warning that economy is just a meansand the possibility that policies based onldquoconfusions of ends and meansrdquo mayperniciously lead to misdiagnoses of socialproblems and misguided proposals for dealingwith social problems (Sen 2005 p 4)Nevertheless Japan has pursued its own pathof development in terms of GDP expansionperhaps neglecting ldquothe really valuable endsrdquoand the interests of many of its citizens aboveall future generations (Sen 2005 p 4)

Senrsquos theory of democratic governance andfamine prevention

Let us now turn to Amartya Sens work on thecauses of famines in non-democratic societiesIn ldquoDemocracy as a Universal Valuerdquo (1999)Sen reports ldquoIn the summer of 1997 I wasasked by a leading Japanese newspaper what Ithought was the most important thing that hadhappened in the twentieth centuryrdquo (Sen 1999p3) On reflection he replied ldquothe rise ofdemocracy (ibid)rdquo (Presumably it was not hisimplied criticism of Japanrsquos politics and themedia given the time of the interview) ForSen democracy is by no means limited tovoting and elections from among multipleparties Rather ldquodemocracy is best seen asgovernment by discussionrdquo namely peoplesparticipation and public reasoning (Sen 2009p 324) In his analysis of famine preventionSen emphasizes the importance of democracyand freedom of the press arguing that ldquono

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

7

major famine has ever occurred in afunctioning democracy with regular electionsopposition parties basic freedom of speech anda relatively free media (even when the countryis very poor and in a seriously adverse foodsituation)rdquo (ibid p 342) The Indian-bornprofessor gives many historical examples offamines ldquoThe prevalence of famines which hadbeen a persistent feature of the long history ofthe British Indian Empire ended abruptly withthe establishment of a democracy afterindependence (ibid)rdquo Another historicalexample was the massive famine in Chinaduring 1958-61 of the failed Great LeapForward which claimed close to 30 million oflives Sens theory about the close connectionbetween famines and non-democratic regimeshas been influential

Sen emphasizes four ways in which democracyplays important roles in famine prevention 1)intrinsic and constitutive importance 2)political incentive 3) instrumental andconstructive aspects 4) information (Sen2009 pp 342-345) First he argues thatdemocracy has an intrinsic and constitutiveimportance for human life and well-beingSecond when democratic governments areaccountable to their citizens they can besubject to uncensored media coverage andsevere public criticism This gives governmentsstrong political incentive to invest in famineprevention and eradication to retain powerThird famine-affected populations usuallymake up a small proportion of the totalpopulation which does not pose a very seriousthreat to the government ldquoWhat makes afamine such a political disaster for a rulinggovernment is [however] the reach of publicreasoning which moves and energizes a verylarge proportion of the general public toprotest and shout about the uncaringgovernment and to try to bring it down hellip Notleast of the achievements of democracy is itsability to make people take an interest throughpublic discussion in each others predicamentsand to have a better understanding of the lives

of othersrdquo (ibid pp 343-344) Thus Sen notesits instrumental role ldquodemocracy has animportant instrumental value in enhancing thehearing that people get in expressing andsupporting their claims to political attentionrdquo aswell as a constructive role ldquothe practice ofdemocracy gives citizens an opportunity tolearn from one another and helps society toform its values and priorities (Sen 1999 p 10)Fourth another vital aspect of democracy is aninformative role in disseminating informationand knowledge through broadcasters and thepress and that allows the government toreceive critical public scrutiny Sen writes onthe adverse aspects of non-democracy forinstance the failed Great Leap Forward asfollows

Indeed the lack of a free system of newsdistribution ultimately misled the governmentitself fed by its own propaganda and by rosyreports of local party officials hellip [The Chinesegovernment] did not substantially revise itsdisastrous policies hellip during the three famineyears The non-revision was possible not onlybecause of the lack of a political opposition andthe absence of an independent media but alsobecause the Chinese government itself did notsee the need to change its policies partlybecause it did not have enough information onthe extent to which the Great Leap Forwardhad failed (Sen 2009 pp 344-345)

In short Sen underlines that authoritarianregimes have historically tried to hide ordownplay the inconvenient facts of faminesand have failed to obtain accurate informationabout ongoing crises which resulted in undulydelaying taking the corrective measures andaggravating the humanitarian situationTherefore he concludes that a phenomenon offamine is a complex man-made disaster ratherthan a natural calamity

Failure of Information on Fukushima

When reflecting on media self-censorshipgovernment whitewashes and the history of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

8

India under British colonial rule thesehistorical events evoke memories of Japan Thecountry has experienced the post-occupationalrelationship with the USA extended GHQcensorship under occupation (Okuizumi 2000)continuous ldquoClient Staterdquo (Zokkoku) status(McCormack 2010) and a simulacrum of demo-cracy where the Liberal Democratic Party rulednearly non-stop for more than half a centuryuntil recently This history suggests that someof the important roles of democracy (ieinformative role) that Sen highlights may nothave functioned well in Japan Therefore I findhis critique peculiarly suggestive for analyzingthe current nuclear disaster of Japan andreflecting on democratic process

Let us review in a-question-and-answer formatwhat has happened so far at the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant of the TokyoElectric Power Co (TEPCO)

1 How did the Japanese authorities react in theearly days of the nuclear crisis after thecountry was struck by earthquake and tsunamion March 11

ldquo[S]afety officials insisted repeatedly throughthe day that radiation leaks outside the plantremained small and did not pose a major healthriskrdquo (NY Times March 12 2011) Meanwhilethe first third and fourth reactor buildings ofFukushima Daiichi massively exploded withindays (see Fujioka 2011 Hirose 2011) fourexplosions occurred by March 17 (ReutersMarch 17 2011)

ldquo[Yukio Edano the then chief cabinetsecretary] declined to speculate on what thegovernment could have done differently in thewake of the disaster on March 11 hellip He saidthe tsunami was beyond anyonersquos imaginationrebutt ing cr i t ics who have said thatgovernment regulators and the Tokyo ElectricPower Company hellip ignored warnings that thereactors were vulnerable Detractors hellip havealso said that nuclear regulators and the powercompany did not act fast enough to prevent the

explosions that damaged the reactor buildingsand that efforts to cool the reactors and spentfuel pools with helicopters and water cannonswere ineffectiverdquo (NY Times April 10 2011)

As the word ldquosouteigairdquo (beyond imagination)was often used to describe the FukushimaDaiichi accident at televised news conferencesthe authorities displayed confusion ill-preparedness insufficient knowledge ofnuclear and crisis leadership and at the sametime emphasized calming the public anddownplayed the severity of the nuclearaccident Given growing distrust of thegovernment TEPCO and the mainstreammedia many people turned to alternative(particularly online) media for reliableinformation The Ministry of Internal Affairsand Communications announcement calling formoderation in online news reports about theFukushima Daiichi reactors on April 6 2011was reminiscent of wartime informationmanagement with its heavy censorship7 Manyof its reactions echoed the daihonrsquoei happyouor force-feeding military propaganda conveyinghow well the war was going

2 Why has information been withheld

The authorities seem to have had strongpolitical incentives to withhold information asthey had long proudly insisted that a nuclearaccident will never happen in Japan (seeHirose 2011 Koide 2011) There is evidenceof a collusive nexus of vested interests sharedby government officials politicians nuclearindustry executives nuclear regulatorsacademics and the courts8 to promote thenuclear power industry and to protect itsinterests (see for example ldquonuclear villagerdquo inOsnos 2011 NY Times May 16 2011)Particularly power companies have exercisedhuge economic and political influence over thegovernment ldquoThe Asahi Shimbun found that atleast 448 of the [TEPCO] companys executivesdonated a total of 5957 million yen ($777000)to a political fund-raising arm of the then ruling

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

9

[Liberal Democratic] party between 1995 and2009rdquo (October 8 20119) By contrastdissidents and anti-nuclear critics have beentreated as heretics or outcastes Pro-nucleargroups have tried to cover-up or minimize theseverity of the disaster and the (long-term)effects of radioactivity Major Japanese mediacolluded in part by restricting critical reportingand slighting the activities of protesters anddissidents In the case of the big mediavoluntary censorship was practiced to assurethat their single largest advertising sector theelectric power companies would continue theirlargesse

3 What information was withheld And whatare the implications for the public

There were ldquomany pieces of information theauthorities initially withheld from the publicrdquo(NY Times August 8 2011) One importantsource of information is computer-basedforecasts derived from the System forPrediction of Environmental Emergency DoseInformation or Speedi Speedi was developedto provide ldquomeasurements of radioactivereleases as well as weather and topographicaldata to predict where radioactive materialscould travel after being released into theatmosphererdquo (ibid) Its development reportedlytook more than 20 years and cost more than 10billion yen The New York Times wrote thatldquothe prime ministers office [under Kan]refused to release the results even after it wasmade aware of Speedi because officials theredid not want to take responsibility for costlyevacuations if their estimates were later calledinto questionrdquo (ibid) As a result the data ldquowasnot released to the public until three monthsafter the fact and only then in materials for aconference overseasrdquo (ibid)

In response to the crisis people living within20 km of the plant were ordered to evacuate asa safety precaution Without accurateinformation many other people outside theevacuation zone escaped to areas deemed

relatively safe Some later discovered that theyhad been exposed to high levels of radioactivefallout which spread unevenly over largeswathes of the Tohoku and Kanto regions in theimmediate aftermath of the accident Theforecast data was made public too late todistribute iodine pills Needless to sayexposure poses a range of potential healthproblems particularly increasing the risk ofthyroid cancer and other diseases includingheart disease for children (see Busby 2011Kodama 2011) Their exposure was neitherinescapable nor necessary The mayor of Namiein Fukushima charged that ldquoThe withholding ofinformation hellip was akin to murderrdquo (NY TimesAugust 8 2011)

4 What are the major facts about the nuclearaccident the Japanese authoritiesrsquo responsesand the Fukushima people as of October 28201110

A nuclear melt-through took place in thefirst reactor building of FukushimaDaiichi This is even more devastatingthan a core melt-down and it is highlylikely that nuclear fuel has meltedthrough the outer vessels directly intothe ground and groundwater near thecoast thus flowing into the seas andcontaminating them Since last MarchKoide Hiroaki has urged TEPCO to usetankers to capture and securely disposeof a massive amount of contaminatedgroundwater and to build walls in theground to prevent water from escapinginto the ocean (Tanemaki Journal RadioInterview October 25 2011) Thesuggested efforts have not been made Atthe second and third reactors whichexperienced full melt down workerscannot even enter the buildings becauseof the elevated levels of radioactivityMeanwhile TEPCO announced that theyhave accomplished reion teishi or coldshutdown According to Koide it isdeceitful to use the term since it

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

10

technically means that they are able tocool the nuclear fuel inside the reactorIn reality the fuel has already meltedand nobody knows where and how thefuel is situated and what its temperatureis (Interview with Koide by Jimbo TetsuoSeptember 8 2011) Thus nothingactually has improved since March Sincedetailed information has not been madepublic it is difficult even for nuclearexperts to understand the situation(Interviews with Koide by YoshidaTerumi October 17 2011)Although the exact amounts and levels ofradioactive materials being released intothe atmosphere are unknown it iscertain that large amounts of radioactivematerials have been dispersed not onlyacross the Tohoku and Kanto regions butworldwide including but not limited tothe most deadly substances notablycesium plutonium and strontiumisotopes (see the map on Fukushima ofCentre drsquoEnseignement et de Rechercheen Environnement Atmospheacuterique11) Tobe more precise comparison can bemade to historical data 800 grams ofuranium were burned when one atomicbomb annihilated Hiroshima city whileone ton of uranium is consumed eachyear at a nuclear power plant of onemillion kilowatts an amount that is over1000 times greater than the atomicbomb The amount of cesium-137released in the air from the FukushimaDaiichi indicated in the Japanesegovernmentrsquos report to the IAEA isequivalent to 170 bombs dropped inHiroshima This estimate does notinclude other radioactive materialsdispersed in soil and the cesium thatentered the Pacific Ocean Koidecautions that the governmentrsquos reportednumbers are bound to be underestimates(his speech on October 22 2011)Contamina t ion l eve l s o f l oca lenvironment foodstuffs and drinking

water in some areas exceed safetystandards The government hasresponded by raising the limits ofallowed exposure For example undernewly adopted Japanese regulations 500becquerels per kilogram of radioactivecesium in rice (the staple food for theJapanese ) i s cer t i f i ed sa fe fo rconsumption This is 500 times higherthan the limit established before March11 (Tanemaki Journal Radio InterviewOctober 12 2011) The Japanese authorities give the falseimpression that residents will be able toreturn to live in evacuated regions aftermassive cleanup efforts of contaminationBut in fact as in the case of Chernobylthe most contaminated areas will beuninhabitable for decades because ofhigh radiation levels The governmenthas not yet explained this to theevacuated people Moreover the disposalof massive amounts of hazardousradioactive materials and fallout remainsa large unresolved issue (TanemakiJournal Radio Interview October 18 andNovember 7 2011)The government continues to withholdthe Speedi data even though crisismanagement o f f i c ia l s in Sh igaPrefecture for example have repeatedlyrequested the information Shiga liesdownwind of Fukui Prefecture with afleet of aging nuclear reactors AlsoShigarsquos Lake Biwa provides drinkingwater for nearly 15 million people in theKansa i reg ion wh ich cou ld becontaminated should a similar accidentoccur Ko ide be l i eves tha t thegovernment refuses to release the databecause hazard maps will provideconclusive evidence of potential disasterareas and make many locals anti-nuclear(TV interview on October 20 2011Kansai net)At least 70000 people are still living intemporary accommodations eight months

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

3

and the media1 Second Inequality-adjustedHDI and Multidimensional Poverty Index werenot included in Japanrsquos report2 When theseindices are taken into account as we willexamine in the following section Japanrsquosrankings would likely be lowered

In sum in Sens capability approach humanwell-being should be assessed in light ofindividuals social economic and politicalenvironment as well as two elementsfunctionings (to put it simply what one isactually able to do and to be) and capabilities(what one could do and be) Capabilities referto the substantive freedoms to pursue adifferent combination of functionings chosen byan individual This definition leads to an ex anteperspective that well-being needs to beassessed prior to a persons choice andbehavior (here I do not go into the details ofmeasurement issues) Hence freedoms are alsoone of the key components of this approachSen does not favor or advocate a particularconcept of the good life but rather emphasizesthe importance of freedoms that eachindividual exercises concerning the options thatmatter most to her or him He therefore seesand advocates the expansion of a range ofgenuine freedoms and choices to eachindividual understood as human development

Is Japan a truly rich country

The approach can provide a theoretical basisfor critically analyzing Japan in light ofyutakasa As Sen puts it quite well ldquoA countrycan be very rich in conventional economicterms (ie in terms of the value of commoditiesproduced per capita) and still be very poor inthe achieved quality of human liferdquo (Sen 2005pp 3-4 emphasis added) Why can a countrywith plenty of money be very poor Or putdifferently why does the capability approachnot regard high income (or GDP per capita) asa reliable proxy for individual (or societal)advantage At least four answers can be givenFirst of all we need to take into account

conversion factors obtaining resources such asgoods and services is one thing and convertingthem into a functioning realm is another thingFor example a bicycle makes it possible tomove around freely The mere possession of abicycle does not in itself however assure thisfunctioning of mobility An individual with ahandicap would have difficulty in actuallyconverting this resource into mobilitySimilarly a country may be very good atachieving high economic growth but may notbe able to convert the national income tofunctionings such as to assure well-being forthe population In fact many Japanese mayhave wondered if the country is so wealthy orldquoyutakardquo why can they not afford more safetysecurity wellness or happiness3 than others(Nathan 2004)

Second an exclusive focus on GDP orGDPperson is not sufficient because well-beinghas been recognized as a multidimensionalphenomenon that cannot be reduced to wealthor income These measures also fail to indicatehow well people live and how equally economicresources or functionings are distributedamong individual households and differentsocial groups The evidence of this argument ondistributive justice can be found in the issues ofkakusa shakai (disparity or social inequality) ofJapan which have been hotly debated in recentyears (see Tachibanaki 2006 Yamada 2007Slater 2010) Indeed ldquoJapans level of poverty(meaning people who live on less than half themedian income) is still the 4th highest acrossthe OECD areardquo4 Those living below the levelof poverty can hardly be considered to have adecent standard of living Another example of agrossly uneven development gap is kaso areasthat ldquohave experienced a significant populationloss whereby the area has experienceddeclines in its vitality and is in a lower level interms of production funct ioning andinfrastructures related to daily livingcompared to other areasrdquo (David DusinberreEvans Matanle amp Mizohata 2011 p17)These predominantly rural areas whose

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

4

populations are disproportionately composed ofolder people lag behind in standards of livingcompared to the rest of the population andmake up more than half of Japanese territoryLacking viable alternatives for economicsurvival these are precisely the areas that havebeen lured with generous subsidies as ldquoidealrdquoconstruction locations for nuclear power plantsdesigned to transmit electricity to urban areasThis describes the spatial structure of socialinjustice whereby urban areas enjoy highconsumption of electricity whereas kaso areasare reduced to ldquoa meansrdquo of electric powergeneration and pursuing the subsidies that aswe will show imperil rural locals Moreoverexecutives of the electric power companiesfeather their own nest (amakudari) whilesubcontract workers many of them hailingfrom kaso areas are discarded as ldquonucleargypsiesrdquo or the temps on the move who do dirtydangerous work for a pittance (Jobin 2011)

Kaso map Dark areas are kaso areasSource kaso taisakuno genkyo (The PresentState of Kaso Measures) (2007 p 16) byM i n i s t r y o f I n t e r n a l A f f a i r s a n dCommunications Japan

Japans major nuclear power plants and thecenters for nuclear waste disposal

Third there seems to be some confusionbetween opulence and societal well-being inJapan Amartya Sen writes as follows ldquoHumanbeings are the agents beneficiaries andadjudicators of progress but they also happento be ndash directly or indirectly ndash the primarymeans of all production This dual role ofhuman beings provides a rich ground forconfusion of ends and means in planning andpolicy-makingrdquo (Sen 2005 p 3) Sen clearlydistinguishes between economic prosperity andhuman well-being ldquoFirst economic prosperityis no more than one of the means to enrichingthe lives of people It is a foundationalconfusion to give it the status of an endSecondly even as a means merely enhancingaverage economic opulence can be quiteinefficient in the pursuit of the really valuableendsrdquo (ibid p 4)

Japan may have long suffered ldquocostlyconfusions of ends and meansrdquo against whichSen warned (Sen 2005 p 4) GavanMcCormack wri tes ldquoNominal ly theConstitution of 1947 declared the peoplesovereign but the promise remains to be

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

5

fulfilled Long seen as the favored child andmajor beneficiary of the Cold War Japan looksincreasingly like its orphan unsure of itsidentity lacking a sense of direction driftingunable to conceive of a goal beyond GDPexpansion yet increasingly dissatisfied with itrdquo(McCormack 2001 xii) In fact there havebeen policies of drift where public-worksprojects have been seen as an importantldquomeansrdquo for economic growth Japan spent$63 trillion on construction-related publicinvestment between 1991 and September of[2008] rdquo during a period when public spendingwas slashed and budget deficits dramaticallyincreased (NY Times February 5 2009) It iswell known that Japanrsquos rural areas are litteredwith many pork-barrel projects of hakomonoand other buildings (white elephants or eerieempty gestures) (for more details see FeldhoffMizohata Seaton 2011) Much infrastructurespending has been a monumental waste withnumerous bridges breakwaters dams androads having been built in areas devoid of theeconomically active population socialinteraction and traffic These hakomono maybe instrumentally significant for certainlocalsndashespecially people with vested interestsbut they carry no intrinsic importance for thewell-being of the local people and are irrelevantto todays knowledge-based economyMeanwhile the importance of education forinstance has been neglected A former vicepresident of the World Bank Nishimizu Miekopoints out5 that Japanrsquos educational standardshave been degenerating for the last twentyyears and its system offers greatly reducedopportunities for students from sociallydisadvantaged backgrounds Her argument canbe reinforced by Abe Ayarsquos empirical evidenceon child poverty and social exclusion (Abe2008) In a misguided pursuit of ldquoyutakanardquosociety the government has sacrificed thequality of life of people and their long-termbenefits and opportunities

Yet preoccupation with economic growth atsacrifice of well-being remains dominant and

pervasive In the aftermath of the Great EastJapan Earthquake many authorities and pro-nuclear groups continue to insist that Japanrsquoseconomy would be mired in prolonged declineand stagnation if the nation quits nuclearpower ldquothe Institute of Energy Economics ofJapan estimated that the countryrsquos grossdomestic product could go down as much as36 per cent if no reactors were allowed torestart a no-nuclear scenario would lead to arise in jobless claims by 197000rdquo6 Theydiscuss the issues as if there were noalternative energy sources to generateelectricity as well as employment opportunitiesThese examples of the use of growth- andprofit-oriented incentives show that the clearidentification of ends (namely Japanesepeoples welfare) and making the plight ofpeople affected by nuclear radiation an urgentpolitical issue have been largely ignored inpolicy design Similarly a counter-argumentcan be drawn from the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussireport which argues persuasively thatincreased fuel consumption would not onlyincrease economic growth figures but also forexample boost pollution and result in trafficjams and accidents In short these numbers donot necessarily reflect the objective of movingtowards social progress and sustainabledevelopment (Stiglitz Sen amp Fitoussi 2009)

Fourth just as the CA shows that conventionalmeasures of wel l -being often ignoreinequalities and injustice it also notes theimportance of sustainability Atkinson et alwrite ldquoSocial indicators may be forward-looking People are excluded not just becausethey are currently without a job or income butalso because they have little prospects for thefuture Social exclusion is a matter not only ofex post trajectories but also of ex anteexpectationsrdquo (Atkinson Cantillon Marlier ampNolan 2002 p32) This suggests that issues ofsocial exclusion and inequality are linked to the(un)likelihood of future improvement andempowerment This brings us to issues ofnuclear power and radiation In the wake of the

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

6

311 earthquake tsunami and nuclear powermeltdown radioactive materials have heavilycontaminated the soil water air and food inthe Tohoku and Kanto regions and may enterthe food chain To make matters worse thesesubstances as in the case of Cesium-137 withits thirty year half-life will linger for decadesand profoundly affect peoples well-being TheNew York Times (August 8 2011) reported onthe immediate consequences for children inareas heavily affected by radiation ldquoTens ofthousands of children are being kept insideschool buildings this hot summer where somewear masks even though the windows are keptshut Many will soon be wearing individualdosimeters to track their exposure toradiationrdquo Similarly the Tokyo Shimbun(August 18 2011) reported on 37 letters fromthe children of Fukushima written togovernmental officials They wrote ldquoI wish toplay outside and breathe clean airrdquo ldquoI wishradiation to be gone I wish to be able to keep adogrdquo (5th grade girl) ldquoCan I give birth to anormal baby To what age will I be able toliverdquo (5th grade girl) Reflecting on questions ofinter-generational injustice the legacy of thecurrent generation of adults is to leave futuregenerations to bear the burden of nucleardisaster far into the future as documented byfilmmaker Michael Madsens Into Eternitywhich shows Finlandrsquos effort to dispose ofnuclear waste There the safe storage ofnuclear waste will require 100000 years beforeit becomes harmless

Rei Shivas photo shows the deserted town ofFutaba inside the 20-kilometer evacuationzone in Fukushima prefecture The irony is thatthe crossroad sign saying ldquoWith correctunderstanding of nuclear (we have) a yutakanalivingrdquo Another photographer Ota Yasusukeshows in his blog the photos of the companionanimals unintentionally abandoned after 311

We have reflected on the limits of economic-centered measurements for determiningwhether a country is rich and its people have asuperior quality of life Also we have reviewedSenrsquos warning that economy is just a meansand the possibility that policies based onldquoconfusions of ends and meansrdquo mayperniciously lead to misdiagnoses of socialproblems and misguided proposals for dealingwith social problems (Sen 2005 p 4)Nevertheless Japan has pursued its own pathof development in terms of GDP expansionperhaps neglecting ldquothe really valuable endsrdquoand the interests of many of its citizens aboveall future generations (Sen 2005 p 4)

Senrsquos theory of democratic governance andfamine prevention

Let us now turn to Amartya Sens work on thecauses of famines in non-democratic societiesIn ldquoDemocracy as a Universal Valuerdquo (1999)Sen reports ldquoIn the summer of 1997 I wasasked by a leading Japanese newspaper what Ithought was the most important thing that hadhappened in the twentieth centuryrdquo (Sen 1999p3) On reflection he replied ldquothe rise ofdemocracy (ibid)rdquo (Presumably it was not hisimplied criticism of Japanrsquos politics and themedia given the time of the interview) ForSen democracy is by no means limited tovoting and elections from among multipleparties Rather ldquodemocracy is best seen asgovernment by discussionrdquo namely peoplesparticipation and public reasoning (Sen 2009p 324) In his analysis of famine preventionSen emphasizes the importance of democracyand freedom of the press arguing that ldquono

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

7

major famine has ever occurred in afunctioning democracy with regular electionsopposition parties basic freedom of speech anda relatively free media (even when the countryis very poor and in a seriously adverse foodsituation)rdquo (ibid p 342) The Indian-bornprofessor gives many historical examples offamines ldquoThe prevalence of famines which hadbeen a persistent feature of the long history ofthe British Indian Empire ended abruptly withthe establishment of a democracy afterindependence (ibid)rdquo Another historicalexample was the massive famine in Chinaduring 1958-61 of the failed Great LeapForward which claimed close to 30 million oflives Sens theory about the close connectionbetween famines and non-democratic regimeshas been influential

Sen emphasizes four ways in which democracyplays important roles in famine prevention 1)intrinsic and constitutive importance 2)political incentive 3) instrumental andconstructive aspects 4) information (Sen2009 pp 342-345) First he argues thatdemocracy has an intrinsic and constitutiveimportance for human life and well-beingSecond when democratic governments areaccountable to their citizens they can besubject to uncensored media coverage andsevere public criticism This gives governmentsstrong political incentive to invest in famineprevention and eradication to retain powerThird famine-affected populations usuallymake up a small proportion of the totalpopulation which does not pose a very seriousthreat to the government ldquoWhat makes afamine such a political disaster for a rulinggovernment is [however] the reach of publicreasoning which moves and energizes a verylarge proportion of the general public toprotest and shout about the uncaringgovernment and to try to bring it down hellip Notleast of the achievements of democracy is itsability to make people take an interest throughpublic discussion in each others predicamentsand to have a better understanding of the lives

of othersrdquo (ibid pp 343-344) Thus Sen notesits instrumental role ldquodemocracy has animportant instrumental value in enhancing thehearing that people get in expressing andsupporting their claims to political attentionrdquo aswell as a constructive role ldquothe practice ofdemocracy gives citizens an opportunity tolearn from one another and helps society toform its values and priorities (Sen 1999 p 10)Fourth another vital aspect of democracy is aninformative role in disseminating informationand knowledge through broadcasters and thepress and that allows the government toreceive critical public scrutiny Sen writes onthe adverse aspects of non-democracy forinstance the failed Great Leap Forward asfollows

Indeed the lack of a free system of newsdistribution ultimately misled the governmentitself fed by its own propaganda and by rosyreports of local party officials hellip [The Chinesegovernment] did not substantially revise itsdisastrous policies hellip during the three famineyears The non-revision was possible not onlybecause of the lack of a political opposition andthe absence of an independent media but alsobecause the Chinese government itself did notsee the need to change its policies partlybecause it did not have enough information onthe extent to which the Great Leap Forwardhad failed (Sen 2009 pp 344-345)

In short Sen underlines that authoritarianregimes have historically tried to hide ordownplay the inconvenient facts of faminesand have failed to obtain accurate informationabout ongoing crises which resulted in undulydelaying taking the corrective measures andaggravating the humanitarian situationTherefore he concludes that a phenomenon offamine is a complex man-made disaster ratherthan a natural calamity

Failure of Information on Fukushima

When reflecting on media self-censorshipgovernment whitewashes and the history of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

8

India under British colonial rule thesehistorical events evoke memories of Japan Thecountry has experienced the post-occupationalrelationship with the USA extended GHQcensorship under occupation (Okuizumi 2000)continuous ldquoClient Staterdquo (Zokkoku) status(McCormack 2010) and a simulacrum of demo-cracy where the Liberal Democratic Party rulednearly non-stop for more than half a centuryuntil recently This history suggests that someof the important roles of democracy (ieinformative role) that Sen highlights may nothave functioned well in Japan Therefore I findhis critique peculiarly suggestive for analyzingthe current nuclear disaster of Japan andreflecting on democratic process

Let us review in a-question-and-answer formatwhat has happened so far at the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant of the TokyoElectric Power Co (TEPCO)

1 How did the Japanese authorities react in theearly days of the nuclear crisis after thecountry was struck by earthquake and tsunamion March 11

ldquo[S]afety officials insisted repeatedly throughthe day that radiation leaks outside the plantremained small and did not pose a major healthriskrdquo (NY Times March 12 2011) Meanwhilethe first third and fourth reactor buildings ofFukushima Daiichi massively exploded withindays (see Fujioka 2011 Hirose 2011) fourexplosions occurred by March 17 (ReutersMarch 17 2011)

ldquo[Yukio Edano the then chief cabinetsecretary] declined to speculate on what thegovernment could have done differently in thewake of the disaster on March 11 hellip He saidthe tsunami was beyond anyonersquos imaginationrebutt ing cr i t ics who have said thatgovernment regulators and the Tokyo ElectricPower Company hellip ignored warnings that thereactors were vulnerable Detractors hellip havealso said that nuclear regulators and the powercompany did not act fast enough to prevent the

explosions that damaged the reactor buildingsand that efforts to cool the reactors and spentfuel pools with helicopters and water cannonswere ineffectiverdquo (NY Times April 10 2011)

As the word ldquosouteigairdquo (beyond imagination)was often used to describe the FukushimaDaiichi accident at televised news conferencesthe authorities displayed confusion ill-preparedness insufficient knowledge ofnuclear and crisis leadership and at the sametime emphasized calming the public anddownplayed the severity of the nuclearaccident Given growing distrust of thegovernment TEPCO and the mainstreammedia many people turned to alternative(particularly online) media for reliableinformation The Ministry of Internal Affairsand Communications announcement calling formoderation in online news reports about theFukushima Daiichi reactors on April 6 2011was reminiscent of wartime informationmanagement with its heavy censorship7 Manyof its reactions echoed the daihonrsquoei happyouor force-feeding military propaganda conveyinghow well the war was going

2 Why has information been withheld

The authorities seem to have had strongpolitical incentives to withhold information asthey had long proudly insisted that a nuclearaccident will never happen in Japan (seeHirose 2011 Koide 2011) There is evidenceof a collusive nexus of vested interests sharedby government officials politicians nuclearindustry executives nuclear regulatorsacademics and the courts8 to promote thenuclear power industry and to protect itsinterests (see for example ldquonuclear villagerdquo inOsnos 2011 NY Times May 16 2011)Particularly power companies have exercisedhuge economic and political influence over thegovernment ldquoThe Asahi Shimbun found that atleast 448 of the [TEPCO] companys executivesdonated a total of 5957 million yen ($777000)to a political fund-raising arm of the then ruling

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

9

[Liberal Democratic] party between 1995 and2009rdquo (October 8 20119) By contrastdissidents and anti-nuclear critics have beentreated as heretics or outcastes Pro-nucleargroups have tried to cover-up or minimize theseverity of the disaster and the (long-term)effects of radioactivity Major Japanese mediacolluded in part by restricting critical reportingand slighting the activities of protesters anddissidents In the case of the big mediavoluntary censorship was practiced to assurethat their single largest advertising sector theelectric power companies would continue theirlargesse

3 What information was withheld And whatare the implications for the public

There were ldquomany pieces of information theauthorities initially withheld from the publicrdquo(NY Times August 8 2011) One importantsource of information is computer-basedforecasts derived from the System forPrediction of Environmental Emergency DoseInformation or Speedi Speedi was developedto provide ldquomeasurements of radioactivereleases as well as weather and topographicaldata to predict where radioactive materialscould travel after being released into theatmosphererdquo (ibid) Its development reportedlytook more than 20 years and cost more than 10billion yen The New York Times wrote thatldquothe prime ministers office [under Kan]refused to release the results even after it wasmade aware of Speedi because officials theredid not want to take responsibility for costlyevacuations if their estimates were later calledinto questionrdquo (ibid) As a result the data ldquowasnot released to the public until three monthsafter the fact and only then in materials for aconference overseasrdquo (ibid)

In response to the crisis people living within20 km of the plant were ordered to evacuate asa safety precaution Without accurateinformation many other people outside theevacuation zone escaped to areas deemed

relatively safe Some later discovered that theyhad been exposed to high levels of radioactivefallout which spread unevenly over largeswathes of the Tohoku and Kanto regions in theimmediate aftermath of the accident Theforecast data was made public too late todistribute iodine pills Needless to sayexposure poses a range of potential healthproblems particularly increasing the risk ofthyroid cancer and other diseases includingheart disease for children (see Busby 2011Kodama 2011) Their exposure was neitherinescapable nor necessary The mayor of Namiein Fukushima charged that ldquoThe withholding ofinformation hellip was akin to murderrdquo (NY TimesAugust 8 2011)

4 What are the major facts about the nuclearaccident the Japanese authoritiesrsquo responsesand the Fukushima people as of October 28201110

A nuclear melt-through took place in thefirst reactor building of FukushimaDaiichi This is even more devastatingthan a core melt-down and it is highlylikely that nuclear fuel has meltedthrough the outer vessels directly intothe ground and groundwater near thecoast thus flowing into the seas andcontaminating them Since last MarchKoide Hiroaki has urged TEPCO to usetankers to capture and securely disposeof a massive amount of contaminatedgroundwater and to build walls in theground to prevent water from escapinginto the ocean (Tanemaki Journal RadioInterview October 25 2011) Thesuggested efforts have not been made Atthe second and third reactors whichexperienced full melt down workerscannot even enter the buildings becauseof the elevated levels of radioactivityMeanwhile TEPCO announced that theyhave accomplished reion teishi or coldshutdown According to Koide it isdeceitful to use the term since it

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

10

technically means that they are able tocool the nuclear fuel inside the reactorIn reality the fuel has already meltedand nobody knows where and how thefuel is situated and what its temperatureis (Interview with Koide by Jimbo TetsuoSeptember 8 2011) Thus nothingactually has improved since March Sincedetailed information has not been madepublic it is difficult even for nuclearexperts to understand the situation(Interviews with Koide by YoshidaTerumi October 17 2011)Although the exact amounts and levels ofradioactive materials being released intothe atmosphere are unknown it iscertain that large amounts of radioactivematerials have been dispersed not onlyacross the Tohoku and Kanto regions butworldwide including but not limited tothe most deadly substances notablycesium plutonium and strontiumisotopes (see the map on Fukushima ofCentre drsquoEnseignement et de Rechercheen Environnement Atmospheacuterique11) Tobe more precise comparison can bemade to historical data 800 grams ofuranium were burned when one atomicbomb annihilated Hiroshima city whileone ton of uranium is consumed eachyear at a nuclear power plant of onemillion kilowatts an amount that is over1000 times greater than the atomicbomb The amount of cesium-137released in the air from the FukushimaDaiichi indicated in the Japanesegovernmentrsquos report to the IAEA isequivalent to 170 bombs dropped inHiroshima This estimate does notinclude other radioactive materialsdispersed in soil and the cesium thatentered the Pacific Ocean Koidecautions that the governmentrsquos reportednumbers are bound to be underestimates(his speech on October 22 2011)Contamina t ion l eve l s o f l oca lenvironment foodstuffs and drinking

water in some areas exceed safetystandards The government hasresponded by raising the limits ofallowed exposure For example undernewly adopted Japanese regulations 500becquerels per kilogram of radioactivecesium in rice (the staple food for theJapanese ) i s cer t i f i ed sa fe fo rconsumption This is 500 times higherthan the limit established before March11 (Tanemaki Journal Radio InterviewOctober 12 2011) The Japanese authorities give the falseimpression that residents will be able toreturn to live in evacuated regions aftermassive cleanup efforts of contaminationBut in fact as in the case of Chernobylthe most contaminated areas will beuninhabitable for decades because ofhigh radiation levels The governmenthas not yet explained this to theevacuated people Moreover the disposalof massive amounts of hazardousradioactive materials and fallout remainsa large unresolved issue (TanemakiJournal Radio Interview October 18 andNovember 7 2011)The government continues to withholdthe Speedi data even though crisismanagement o f f i c ia l s in Sh igaPrefecture for example have repeatedlyrequested the information Shiga liesdownwind of Fukui Prefecture with afleet of aging nuclear reactors AlsoShigarsquos Lake Biwa provides drinkingwater for nearly 15 million people in theKansa i reg ion wh ich cou ld becontaminated should a similar accidentoccur Ko ide be l i eves tha t thegovernment refuses to release the databecause hazard maps will provideconclusive evidence of potential disasterareas and make many locals anti-nuclear(TV interview on October 20 2011Kansai net)At least 70000 people are still living intemporary accommodations eight months

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

4

populations are disproportionately composed ofolder people lag behind in standards of livingcompared to the rest of the population andmake up more than half of Japanese territoryLacking viable alternatives for economicsurvival these are precisely the areas that havebeen lured with generous subsidies as ldquoidealrdquoconstruction locations for nuclear power plantsdesigned to transmit electricity to urban areasThis describes the spatial structure of socialinjustice whereby urban areas enjoy highconsumption of electricity whereas kaso areasare reduced to ldquoa meansrdquo of electric powergeneration and pursuing the subsidies that aswe will show imperil rural locals Moreoverexecutives of the electric power companiesfeather their own nest (amakudari) whilesubcontract workers many of them hailingfrom kaso areas are discarded as ldquonucleargypsiesrdquo or the temps on the move who do dirtydangerous work for a pittance (Jobin 2011)

Kaso map Dark areas are kaso areasSource kaso taisakuno genkyo (The PresentState of Kaso Measures) (2007 p 16) byM i n i s t r y o f I n t e r n a l A f f a i r s a n dCommunications Japan

Japans major nuclear power plants and thecenters for nuclear waste disposal

Third there seems to be some confusionbetween opulence and societal well-being inJapan Amartya Sen writes as follows ldquoHumanbeings are the agents beneficiaries andadjudicators of progress but they also happento be ndash directly or indirectly ndash the primarymeans of all production This dual role ofhuman beings provides a rich ground forconfusion of ends and means in planning andpolicy-makingrdquo (Sen 2005 p 3) Sen clearlydistinguishes between economic prosperity andhuman well-being ldquoFirst economic prosperityis no more than one of the means to enrichingthe lives of people It is a foundationalconfusion to give it the status of an endSecondly even as a means merely enhancingaverage economic opulence can be quiteinefficient in the pursuit of the really valuableendsrdquo (ibid p 4)

Japan may have long suffered ldquocostlyconfusions of ends and meansrdquo against whichSen warned (Sen 2005 p 4) GavanMcCormack wri tes ldquoNominal ly theConstitution of 1947 declared the peoplesovereign but the promise remains to be

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

5

fulfilled Long seen as the favored child andmajor beneficiary of the Cold War Japan looksincreasingly like its orphan unsure of itsidentity lacking a sense of direction driftingunable to conceive of a goal beyond GDPexpansion yet increasingly dissatisfied with itrdquo(McCormack 2001 xii) In fact there havebeen policies of drift where public-worksprojects have been seen as an importantldquomeansrdquo for economic growth Japan spent$63 trillion on construction-related publicinvestment between 1991 and September of[2008] rdquo during a period when public spendingwas slashed and budget deficits dramaticallyincreased (NY Times February 5 2009) It iswell known that Japanrsquos rural areas are litteredwith many pork-barrel projects of hakomonoand other buildings (white elephants or eerieempty gestures) (for more details see FeldhoffMizohata Seaton 2011) Much infrastructurespending has been a monumental waste withnumerous bridges breakwaters dams androads having been built in areas devoid of theeconomically active population socialinteraction and traffic These hakomono maybe instrumentally significant for certainlocalsndashespecially people with vested interestsbut they carry no intrinsic importance for thewell-being of the local people and are irrelevantto todays knowledge-based economyMeanwhile the importance of education forinstance has been neglected A former vicepresident of the World Bank Nishimizu Miekopoints out5 that Japanrsquos educational standardshave been degenerating for the last twentyyears and its system offers greatly reducedopportunities for students from sociallydisadvantaged backgrounds Her argument canbe reinforced by Abe Ayarsquos empirical evidenceon child poverty and social exclusion (Abe2008) In a misguided pursuit of ldquoyutakanardquosociety the government has sacrificed thequality of life of people and their long-termbenefits and opportunities

Yet preoccupation with economic growth atsacrifice of well-being remains dominant and

pervasive In the aftermath of the Great EastJapan Earthquake many authorities and pro-nuclear groups continue to insist that Japanrsquoseconomy would be mired in prolonged declineand stagnation if the nation quits nuclearpower ldquothe Institute of Energy Economics ofJapan estimated that the countryrsquos grossdomestic product could go down as much as36 per cent if no reactors were allowed torestart a no-nuclear scenario would lead to arise in jobless claims by 197000rdquo6 Theydiscuss the issues as if there were noalternative energy sources to generateelectricity as well as employment opportunitiesThese examples of the use of growth- andprofit-oriented incentives show that the clearidentification of ends (namely Japanesepeoples welfare) and making the plight ofpeople affected by nuclear radiation an urgentpolitical issue have been largely ignored inpolicy design Similarly a counter-argumentcan be drawn from the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussireport which argues persuasively thatincreased fuel consumption would not onlyincrease economic growth figures but also forexample boost pollution and result in trafficjams and accidents In short these numbers donot necessarily reflect the objective of movingtowards social progress and sustainabledevelopment (Stiglitz Sen amp Fitoussi 2009)

Fourth just as the CA shows that conventionalmeasures of wel l -being often ignoreinequalities and injustice it also notes theimportance of sustainability Atkinson et alwrite ldquoSocial indicators may be forward-looking People are excluded not just becausethey are currently without a job or income butalso because they have little prospects for thefuture Social exclusion is a matter not only ofex post trajectories but also of ex anteexpectationsrdquo (Atkinson Cantillon Marlier ampNolan 2002 p32) This suggests that issues ofsocial exclusion and inequality are linked to the(un)likelihood of future improvement andempowerment This brings us to issues ofnuclear power and radiation In the wake of the

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

6

311 earthquake tsunami and nuclear powermeltdown radioactive materials have heavilycontaminated the soil water air and food inthe Tohoku and Kanto regions and may enterthe food chain To make matters worse thesesubstances as in the case of Cesium-137 withits thirty year half-life will linger for decadesand profoundly affect peoples well-being TheNew York Times (August 8 2011) reported onthe immediate consequences for children inareas heavily affected by radiation ldquoTens ofthousands of children are being kept insideschool buildings this hot summer where somewear masks even though the windows are keptshut Many will soon be wearing individualdosimeters to track their exposure toradiationrdquo Similarly the Tokyo Shimbun(August 18 2011) reported on 37 letters fromthe children of Fukushima written togovernmental officials They wrote ldquoI wish toplay outside and breathe clean airrdquo ldquoI wishradiation to be gone I wish to be able to keep adogrdquo (5th grade girl) ldquoCan I give birth to anormal baby To what age will I be able toliverdquo (5th grade girl) Reflecting on questions ofinter-generational injustice the legacy of thecurrent generation of adults is to leave futuregenerations to bear the burden of nucleardisaster far into the future as documented byfilmmaker Michael Madsens Into Eternitywhich shows Finlandrsquos effort to dispose ofnuclear waste There the safe storage ofnuclear waste will require 100000 years beforeit becomes harmless

Rei Shivas photo shows the deserted town ofFutaba inside the 20-kilometer evacuationzone in Fukushima prefecture The irony is thatthe crossroad sign saying ldquoWith correctunderstanding of nuclear (we have) a yutakanalivingrdquo Another photographer Ota Yasusukeshows in his blog the photos of the companionanimals unintentionally abandoned after 311

We have reflected on the limits of economic-centered measurements for determiningwhether a country is rich and its people have asuperior quality of life Also we have reviewedSenrsquos warning that economy is just a meansand the possibility that policies based onldquoconfusions of ends and meansrdquo mayperniciously lead to misdiagnoses of socialproblems and misguided proposals for dealingwith social problems (Sen 2005 p 4)Nevertheless Japan has pursued its own pathof development in terms of GDP expansionperhaps neglecting ldquothe really valuable endsrdquoand the interests of many of its citizens aboveall future generations (Sen 2005 p 4)

Senrsquos theory of democratic governance andfamine prevention

Let us now turn to Amartya Sens work on thecauses of famines in non-democratic societiesIn ldquoDemocracy as a Universal Valuerdquo (1999)Sen reports ldquoIn the summer of 1997 I wasasked by a leading Japanese newspaper what Ithought was the most important thing that hadhappened in the twentieth centuryrdquo (Sen 1999p3) On reflection he replied ldquothe rise ofdemocracy (ibid)rdquo (Presumably it was not hisimplied criticism of Japanrsquos politics and themedia given the time of the interview) ForSen democracy is by no means limited tovoting and elections from among multipleparties Rather ldquodemocracy is best seen asgovernment by discussionrdquo namely peoplesparticipation and public reasoning (Sen 2009p 324) In his analysis of famine preventionSen emphasizes the importance of democracyand freedom of the press arguing that ldquono

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

7

major famine has ever occurred in afunctioning democracy with regular electionsopposition parties basic freedom of speech anda relatively free media (even when the countryis very poor and in a seriously adverse foodsituation)rdquo (ibid p 342) The Indian-bornprofessor gives many historical examples offamines ldquoThe prevalence of famines which hadbeen a persistent feature of the long history ofthe British Indian Empire ended abruptly withthe establishment of a democracy afterindependence (ibid)rdquo Another historicalexample was the massive famine in Chinaduring 1958-61 of the failed Great LeapForward which claimed close to 30 million oflives Sens theory about the close connectionbetween famines and non-democratic regimeshas been influential

Sen emphasizes four ways in which democracyplays important roles in famine prevention 1)intrinsic and constitutive importance 2)political incentive 3) instrumental andconstructive aspects 4) information (Sen2009 pp 342-345) First he argues thatdemocracy has an intrinsic and constitutiveimportance for human life and well-beingSecond when democratic governments areaccountable to their citizens they can besubject to uncensored media coverage andsevere public criticism This gives governmentsstrong political incentive to invest in famineprevention and eradication to retain powerThird famine-affected populations usuallymake up a small proportion of the totalpopulation which does not pose a very seriousthreat to the government ldquoWhat makes afamine such a political disaster for a rulinggovernment is [however] the reach of publicreasoning which moves and energizes a verylarge proportion of the general public toprotest and shout about the uncaringgovernment and to try to bring it down hellip Notleast of the achievements of democracy is itsability to make people take an interest throughpublic discussion in each others predicamentsand to have a better understanding of the lives

of othersrdquo (ibid pp 343-344) Thus Sen notesits instrumental role ldquodemocracy has animportant instrumental value in enhancing thehearing that people get in expressing andsupporting their claims to political attentionrdquo aswell as a constructive role ldquothe practice ofdemocracy gives citizens an opportunity tolearn from one another and helps society toform its values and priorities (Sen 1999 p 10)Fourth another vital aspect of democracy is aninformative role in disseminating informationand knowledge through broadcasters and thepress and that allows the government toreceive critical public scrutiny Sen writes onthe adverse aspects of non-democracy forinstance the failed Great Leap Forward asfollows

Indeed the lack of a free system of newsdistribution ultimately misled the governmentitself fed by its own propaganda and by rosyreports of local party officials hellip [The Chinesegovernment] did not substantially revise itsdisastrous policies hellip during the three famineyears The non-revision was possible not onlybecause of the lack of a political opposition andthe absence of an independent media but alsobecause the Chinese government itself did notsee the need to change its policies partlybecause it did not have enough information onthe extent to which the Great Leap Forwardhad failed (Sen 2009 pp 344-345)

In short Sen underlines that authoritarianregimes have historically tried to hide ordownplay the inconvenient facts of faminesand have failed to obtain accurate informationabout ongoing crises which resulted in undulydelaying taking the corrective measures andaggravating the humanitarian situationTherefore he concludes that a phenomenon offamine is a complex man-made disaster ratherthan a natural calamity

Failure of Information on Fukushima

When reflecting on media self-censorshipgovernment whitewashes and the history of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

8

India under British colonial rule thesehistorical events evoke memories of Japan Thecountry has experienced the post-occupationalrelationship with the USA extended GHQcensorship under occupation (Okuizumi 2000)continuous ldquoClient Staterdquo (Zokkoku) status(McCormack 2010) and a simulacrum of demo-cracy where the Liberal Democratic Party rulednearly non-stop for more than half a centuryuntil recently This history suggests that someof the important roles of democracy (ieinformative role) that Sen highlights may nothave functioned well in Japan Therefore I findhis critique peculiarly suggestive for analyzingthe current nuclear disaster of Japan andreflecting on democratic process

Let us review in a-question-and-answer formatwhat has happened so far at the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant of the TokyoElectric Power Co (TEPCO)

1 How did the Japanese authorities react in theearly days of the nuclear crisis after thecountry was struck by earthquake and tsunamion March 11

ldquo[S]afety officials insisted repeatedly throughthe day that radiation leaks outside the plantremained small and did not pose a major healthriskrdquo (NY Times March 12 2011) Meanwhilethe first third and fourth reactor buildings ofFukushima Daiichi massively exploded withindays (see Fujioka 2011 Hirose 2011) fourexplosions occurred by March 17 (ReutersMarch 17 2011)

ldquo[Yukio Edano the then chief cabinetsecretary] declined to speculate on what thegovernment could have done differently in thewake of the disaster on March 11 hellip He saidthe tsunami was beyond anyonersquos imaginationrebutt ing cr i t ics who have said thatgovernment regulators and the Tokyo ElectricPower Company hellip ignored warnings that thereactors were vulnerable Detractors hellip havealso said that nuclear regulators and the powercompany did not act fast enough to prevent the

explosions that damaged the reactor buildingsand that efforts to cool the reactors and spentfuel pools with helicopters and water cannonswere ineffectiverdquo (NY Times April 10 2011)

As the word ldquosouteigairdquo (beyond imagination)was often used to describe the FukushimaDaiichi accident at televised news conferencesthe authorities displayed confusion ill-preparedness insufficient knowledge ofnuclear and crisis leadership and at the sametime emphasized calming the public anddownplayed the severity of the nuclearaccident Given growing distrust of thegovernment TEPCO and the mainstreammedia many people turned to alternative(particularly online) media for reliableinformation The Ministry of Internal Affairsand Communications announcement calling formoderation in online news reports about theFukushima Daiichi reactors on April 6 2011was reminiscent of wartime informationmanagement with its heavy censorship7 Manyof its reactions echoed the daihonrsquoei happyouor force-feeding military propaganda conveyinghow well the war was going

2 Why has information been withheld

The authorities seem to have had strongpolitical incentives to withhold information asthey had long proudly insisted that a nuclearaccident will never happen in Japan (seeHirose 2011 Koide 2011) There is evidenceof a collusive nexus of vested interests sharedby government officials politicians nuclearindustry executives nuclear regulatorsacademics and the courts8 to promote thenuclear power industry and to protect itsinterests (see for example ldquonuclear villagerdquo inOsnos 2011 NY Times May 16 2011)Particularly power companies have exercisedhuge economic and political influence over thegovernment ldquoThe Asahi Shimbun found that atleast 448 of the [TEPCO] companys executivesdonated a total of 5957 million yen ($777000)to a political fund-raising arm of the then ruling

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

9

[Liberal Democratic] party between 1995 and2009rdquo (October 8 20119) By contrastdissidents and anti-nuclear critics have beentreated as heretics or outcastes Pro-nucleargroups have tried to cover-up or minimize theseverity of the disaster and the (long-term)effects of radioactivity Major Japanese mediacolluded in part by restricting critical reportingand slighting the activities of protesters anddissidents In the case of the big mediavoluntary censorship was practiced to assurethat their single largest advertising sector theelectric power companies would continue theirlargesse

3 What information was withheld And whatare the implications for the public

There were ldquomany pieces of information theauthorities initially withheld from the publicrdquo(NY Times August 8 2011) One importantsource of information is computer-basedforecasts derived from the System forPrediction of Environmental Emergency DoseInformation or Speedi Speedi was developedto provide ldquomeasurements of radioactivereleases as well as weather and topographicaldata to predict where radioactive materialscould travel after being released into theatmosphererdquo (ibid) Its development reportedlytook more than 20 years and cost more than 10billion yen The New York Times wrote thatldquothe prime ministers office [under Kan]refused to release the results even after it wasmade aware of Speedi because officials theredid not want to take responsibility for costlyevacuations if their estimates were later calledinto questionrdquo (ibid) As a result the data ldquowasnot released to the public until three monthsafter the fact and only then in materials for aconference overseasrdquo (ibid)

In response to the crisis people living within20 km of the plant were ordered to evacuate asa safety precaution Without accurateinformation many other people outside theevacuation zone escaped to areas deemed

relatively safe Some later discovered that theyhad been exposed to high levels of radioactivefallout which spread unevenly over largeswathes of the Tohoku and Kanto regions in theimmediate aftermath of the accident Theforecast data was made public too late todistribute iodine pills Needless to sayexposure poses a range of potential healthproblems particularly increasing the risk ofthyroid cancer and other diseases includingheart disease for children (see Busby 2011Kodama 2011) Their exposure was neitherinescapable nor necessary The mayor of Namiein Fukushima charged that ldquoThe withholding ofinformation hellip was akin to murderrdquo (NY TimesAugust 8 2011)

4 What are the major facts about the nuclearaccident the Japanese authoritiesrsquo responsesand the Fukushima people as of October 28201110

A nuclear melt-through took place in thefirst reactor building of FukushimaDaiichi This is even more devastatingthan a core melt-down and it is highlylikely that nuclear fuel has meltedthrough the outer vessels directly intothe ground and groundwater near thecoast thus flowing into the seas andcontaminating them Since last MarchKoide Hiroaki has urged TEPCO to usetankers to capture and securely disposeof a massive amount of contaminatedgroundwater and to build walls in theground to prevent water from escapinginto the ocean (Tanemaki Journal RadioInterview October 25 2011) Thesuggested efforts have not been made Atthe second and third reactors whichexperienced full melt down workerscannot even enter the buildings becauseof the elevated levels of radioactivityMeanwhile TEPCO announced that theyhave accomplished reion teishi or coldshutdown According to Koide it isdeceitful to use the term since it

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

10

technically means that they are able tocool the nuclear fuel inside the reactorIn reality the fuel has already meltedand nobody knows where and how thefuel is situated and what its temperatureis (Interview with Koide by Jimbo TetsuoSeptember 8 2011) Thus nothingactually has improved since March Sincedetailed information has not been madepublic it is difficult even for nuclearexperts to understand the situation(Interviews with Koide by YoshidaTerumi October 17 2011)Although the exact amounts and levels ofradioactive materials being released intothe atmosphere are unknown it iscertain that large amounts of radioactivematerials have been dispersed not onlyacross the Tohoku and Kanto regions butworldwide including but not limited tothe most deadly substances notablycesium plutonium and strontiumisotopes (see the map on Fukushima ofCentre drsquoEnseignement et de Rechercheen Environnement Atmospheacuterique11) Tobe more precise comparison can bemade to historical data 800 grams ofuranium were burned when one atomicbomb annihilated Hiroshima city whileone ton of uranium is consumed eachyear at a nuclear power plant of onemillion kilowatts an amount that is over1000 times greater than the atomicbomb The amount of cesium-137released in the air from the FukushimaDaiichi indicated in the Japanesegovernmentrsquos report to the IAEA isequivalent to 170 bombs dropped inHiroshima This estimate does notinclude other radioactive materialsdispersed in soil and the cesium thatentered the Pacific Ocean Koidecautions that the governmentrsquos reportednumbers are bound to be underestimates(his speech on October 22 2011)Contamina t ion l eve l s o f l oca lenvironment foodstuffs and drinking

water in some areas exceed safetystandards The government hasresponded by raising the limits ofallowed exposure For example undernewly adopted Japanese regulations 500becquerels per kilogram of radioactivecesium in rice (the staple food for theJapanese ) i s cer t i f i ed sa fe fo rconsumption This is 500 times higherthan the limit established before March11 (Tanemaki Journal Radio InterviewOctober 12 2011) The Japanese authorities give the falseimpression that residents will be able toreturn to live in evacuated regions aftermassive cleanup efforts of contaminationBut in fact as in the case of Chernobylthe most contaminated areas will beuninhabitable for decades because ofhigh radiation levels The governmenthas not yet explained this to theevacuated people Moreover the disposalof massive amounts of hazardousradioactive materials and fallout remainsa large unresolved issue (TanemakiJournal Radio Interview October 18 andNovember 7 2011)The government continues to withholdthe Speedi data even though crisismanagement o f f i c ia l s in Sh igaPrefecture for example have repeatedlyrequested the information Shiga liesdownwind of Fukui Prefecture with afleet of aging nuclear reactors AlsoShigarsquos Lake Biwa provides drinkingwater for nearly 15 million people in theKansa i reg ion wh ich cou ld becontaminated should a similar accidentoccur Ko ide be l i eves tha t thegovernment refuses to release the databecause hazard maps will provideconclusive evidence of potential disasterareas and make many locals anti-nuclear(TV interview on October 20 2011Kansai net)At least 70000 people are still living intemporary accommodations eight months

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

5

fulfilled Long seen as the favored child andmajor beneficiary of the Cold War Japan looksincreasingly like its orphan unsure of itsidentity lacking a sense of direction driftingunable to conceive of a goal beyond GDPexpansion yet increasingly dissatisfied with itrdquo(McCormack 2001 xii) In fact there havebeen policies of drift where public-worksprojects have been seen as an importantldquomeansrdquo for economic growth Japan spent$63 trillion on construction-related publicinvestment between 1991 and September of[2008] rdquo during a period when public spendingwas slashed and budget deficits dramaticallyincreased (NY Times February 5 2009) It iswell known that Japanrsquos rural areas are litteredwith many pork-barrel projects of hakomonoand other buildings (white elephants or eerieempty gestures) (for more details see FeldhoffMizohata Seaton 2011) Much infrastructurespending has been a monumental waste withnumerous bridges breakwaters dams androads having been built in areas devoid of theeconomically active population socialinteraction and traffic These hakomono maybe instrumentally significant for certainlocalsndashespecially people with vested interestsbut they carry no intrinsic importance for thewell-being of the local people and are irrelevantto todays knowledge-based economyMeanwhile the importance of education forinstance has been neglected A former vicepresident of the World Bank Nishimizu Miekopoints out5 that Japanrsquos educational standardshave been degenerating for the last twentyyears and its system offers greatly reducedopportunities for students from sociallydisadvantaged backgrounds Her argument canbe reinforced by Abe Ayarsquos empirical evidenceon child poverty and social exclusion (Abe2008) In a misguided pursuit of ldquoyutakanardquosociety the government has sacrificed thequality of life of people and their long-termbenefits and opportunities

Yet preoccupation with economic growth atsacrifice of well-being remains dominant and

pervasive In the aftermath of the Great EastJapan Earthquake many authorities and pro-nuclear groups continue to insist that Japanrsquoseconomy would be mired in prolonged declineand stagnation if the nation quits nuclearpower ldquothe Institute of Energy Economics ofJapan estimated that the countryrsquos grossdomestic product could go down as much as36 per cent if no reactors were allowed torestart a no-nuclear scenario would lead to arise in jobless claims by 197000rdquo6 Theydiscuss the issues as if there were noalternative energy sources to generateelectricity as well as employment opportunitiesThese examples of the use of growth- andprofit-oriented incentives show that the clearidentification of ends (namely Japanesepeoples welfare) and making the plight ofpeople affected by nuclear radiation an urgentpolitical issue have been largely ignored inpolicy design Similarly a counter-argumentcan be drawn from the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussireport which argues persuasively thatincreased fuel consumption would not onlyincrease economic growth figures but also forexample boost pollution and result in trafficjams and accidents In short these numbers donot necessarily reflect the objective of movingtowards social progress and sustainabledevelopment (Stiglitz Sen amp Fitoussi 2009)

Fourth just as the CA shows that conventionalmeasures of wel l -being often ignoreinequalities and injustice it also notes theimportance of sustainability Atkinson et alwrite ldquoSocial indicators may be forward-looking People are excluded not just becausethey are currently without a job or income butalso because they have little prospects for thefuture Social exclusion is a matter not only ofex post trajectories but also of ex anteexpectationsrdquo (Atkinson Cantillon Marlier ampNolan 2002 p32) This suggests that issues ofsocial exclusion and inequality are linked to the(un)likelihood of future improvement andempowerment This brings us to issues ofnuclear power and radiation In the wake of the

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

6

311 earthquake tsunami and nuclear powermeltdown radioactive materials have heavilycontaminated the soil water air and food inthe Tohoku and Kanto regions and may enterthe food chain To make matters worse thesesubstances as in the case of Cesium-137 withits thirty year half-life will linger for decadesand profoundly affect peoples well-being TheNew York Times (August 8 2011) reported onthe immediate consequences for children inareas heavily affected by radiation ldquoTens ofthousands of children are being kept insideschool buildings this hot summer where somewear masks even though the windows are keptshut Many will soon be wearing individualdosimeters to track their exposure toradiationrdquo Similarly the Tokyo Shimbun(August 18 2011) reported on 37 letters fromthe children of Fukushima written togovernmental officials They wrote ldquoI wish toplay outside and breathe clean airrdquo ldquoI wishradiation to be gone I wish to be able to keep adogrdquo (5th grade girl) ldquoCan I give birth to anormal baby To what age will I be able toliverdquo (5th grade girl) Reflecting on questions ofinter-generational injustice the legacy of thecurrent generation of adults is to leave futuregenerations to bear the burden of nucleardisaster far into the future as documented byfilmmaker Michael Madsens Into Eternitywhich shows Finlandrsquos effort to dispose ofnuclear waste There the safe storage ofnuclear waste will require 100000 years beforeit becomes harmless

Rei Shivas photo shows the deserted town ofFutaba inside the 20-kilometer evacuationzone in Fukushima prefecture The irony is thatthe crossroad sign saying ldquoWith correctunderstanding of nuclear (we have) a yutakanalivingrdquo Another photographer Ota Yasusukeshows in his blog the photos of the companionanimals unintentionally abandoned after 311

We have reflected on the limits of economic-centered measurements for determiningwhether a country is rich and its people have asuperior quality of life Also we have reviewedSenrsquos warning that economy is just a meansand the possibility that policies based onldquoconfusions of ends and meansrdquo mayperniciously lead to misdiagnoses of socialproblems and misguided proposals for dealingwith social problems (Sen 2005 p 4)Nevertheless Japan has pursued its own pathof development in terms of GDP expansionperhaps neglecting ldquothe really valuable endsrdquoand the interests of many of its citizens aboveall future generations (Sen 2005 p 4)

Senrsquos theory of democratic governance andfamine prevention

Let us now turn to Amartya Sens work on thecauses of famines in non-democratic societiesIn ldquoDemocracy as a Universal Valuerdquo (1999)Sen reports ldquoIn the summer of 1997 I wasasked by a leading Japanese newspaper what Ithought was the most important thing that hadhappened in the twentieth centuryrdquo (Sen 1999p3) On reflection he replied ldquothe rise ofdemocracy (ibid)rdquo (Presumably it was not hisimplied criticism of Japanrsquos politics and themedia given the time of the interview) ForSen democracy is by no means limited tovoting and elections from among multipleparties Rather ldquodemocracy is best seen asgovernment by discussionrdquo namely peoplesparticipation and public reasoning (Sen 2009p 324) In his analysis of famine preventionSen emphasizes the importance of democracyand freedom of the press arguing that ldquono

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

7

major famine has ever occurred in afunctioning democracy with regular electionsopposition parties basic freedom of speech anda relatively free media (even when the countryis very poor and in a seriously adverse foodsituation)rdquo (ibid p 342) The Indian-bornprofessor gives many historical examples offamines ldquoThe prevalence of famines which hadbeen a persistent feature of the long history ofthe British Indian Empire ended abruptly withthe establishment of a democracy afterindependence (ibid)rdquo Another historicalexample was the massive famine in Chinaduring 1958-61 of the failed Great LeapForward which claimed close to 30 million oflives Sens theory about the close connectionbetween famines and non-democratic regimeshas been influential

Sen emphasizes four ways in which democracyplays important roles in famine prevention 1)intrinsic and constitutive importance 2)political incentive 3) instrumental andconstructive aspects 4) information (Sen2009 pp 342-345) First he argues thatdemocracy has an intrinsic and constitutiveimportance for human life and well-beingSecond when democratic governments areaccountable to their citizens they can besubject to uncensored media coverage andsevere public criticism This gives governmentsstrong political incentive to invest in famineprevention and eradication to retain powerThird famine-affected populations usuallymake up a small proportion of the totalpopulation which does not pose a very seriousthreat to the government ldquoWhat makes afamine such a political disaster for a rulinggovernment is [however] the reach of publicreasoning which moves and energizes a verylarge proportion of the general public toprotest and shout about the uncaringgovernment and to try to bring it down hellip Notleast of the achievements of democracy is itsability to make people take an interest throughpublic discussion in each others predicamentsand to have a better understanding of the lives

of othersrdquo (ibid pp 343-344) Thus Sen notesits instrumental role ldquodemocracy has animportant instrumental value in enhancing thehearing that people get in expressing andsupporting their claims to political attentionrdquo aswell as a constructive role ldquothe practice ofdemocracy gives citizens an opportunity tolearn from one another and helps society toform its values and priorities (Sen 1999 p 10)Fourth another vital aspect of democracy is aninformative role in disseminating informationand knowledge through broadcasters and thepress and that allows the government toreceive critical public scrutiny Sen writes onthe adverse aspects of non-democracy forinstance the failed Great Leap Forward asfollows

Indeed the lack of a free system of newsdistribution ultimately misled the governmentitself fed by its own propaganda and by rosyreports of local party officials hellip [The Chinesegovernment] did not substantially revise itsdisastrous policies hellip during the three famineyears The non-revision was possible not onlybecause of the lack of a political opposition andthe absence of an independent media but alsobecause the Chinese government itself did notsee the need to change its policies partlybecause it did not have enough information onthe extent to which the Great Leap Forwardhad failed (Sen 2009 pp 344-345)

In short Sen underlines that authoritarianregimes have historically tried to hide ordownplay the inconvenient facts of faminesand have failed to obtain accurate informationabout ongoing crises which resulted in undulydelaying taking the corrective measures andaggravating the humanitarian situationTherefore he concludes that a phenomenon offamine is a complex man-made disaster ratherthan a natural calamity

Failure of Information on Fukushima

When reflecting on media self-censorshipgovernment whitewashes and the history of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

8

India under British colonial rule thesehistorical events evoke memories of Japan Thecountry has experienced the post-occupationalrelationship with the USA extended GHQcensorship under occupation (Okuizumi 2000)continuous ldquoClient Staterdquo (Zokkoku) status(McCormack 2010) and a simulacrum of demo-cracy where the Liberal Democratic Party rulednearly non-stop for more than half a centuryuntil recently This history suggests that someof the important roles of democracy (ieinformative role) that Sen highlights may nothave functioned well in Japan Therefore I findhis critique peculiarly suggestive for analyzingthe current nuclear disaster of Japan andreflecting on democratic process

Let us review in a-question-and-answer formatwhat has happened so far at the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant of the TokyoElectric Power Co (TEPCO)

1 How did the Japanese authorities react in theearly days of the nuclear crisis after thecountry was struck by earthquake and tsunamion March 11

ldquo[S]afety officials insisted repeatedly throughthe day that radiation leaks outside the plantremained small and did not pose a major healthriskrdquo (NY Times March 12 2011) Meanwhilethe first third and fourth reactor buildings ofFukushima Daiichi massively exploded withindays (see Fujioka 2011 Hirose 2011) fourexplosions occurred by March 17 (ReutersMarch 17 2011)

ldquo[Yukio Edano the then chief cabinetsecretary] declined to speculate on what thegovernment could have done differently in thewake of the disaster on March 11 hellip He saidthe tsunami was beyond anyonersquos imaginationrebutt ing cr i t ics who have said thatgovernment regulators and the Tokyo ElectricPower Company hellip ignored warnings that thereactors were vulnerable Detractors hellip havealso said that nuclear regulators and the powercompany did not act fast enough to prevent the

explosions that damaged the reactor buildingsand that efforts to cool the reactors and spentfuel pools with helicopters and water cannonswere ineffectiverdquo (NY Times April 10 2011)

As the word ldquosouteigairdquo (beyond imagination)was often used to describe the FukushimaDaiichi accident at televised news conferencesthe authorities displayed confusion ill-preparedness insufficient knowledge ofnuclear and crisis leadership and at the sametime emphasized calming the public anddownplayed the severity of the nuclearaccident Given growing distrust of thegovernment TEPCO and the mainstreammedia many people turned to alternative(particularly online) media for reliableinformation The Ministry of Internal Affairsand Communications announcement calling formoderation in online news reports about theFukushima Daiichi reactors on April 6 2011was reminiscent of wartime informationmanagement with its heavy censorship7 Manyof its reactions echoed the daihonrsquoei happyouor force-feeding military propaganda conveyinghow well the war was going

2 Why has information been withheld

The authorities seem to have had strongpolitical incentives to withhold information asthey had long proudly insisted that a nuclearaccident will never happen in Japan (seeHirose 2011 Koide 2011) There is evidenceof a collusive nexus of vested interests sharedby government officials politicians nuclearindustry executives nuclear regulatorsacademics and the courts8 to promote thenuclear power industry and to protect itsinterests (see for example ldquonuclear villagerdquo inOsnos 2011 NY Times May 16 2011)Particularly power companies have exercisedhuge economic and political influence over thegovernment ldquoThe Asahi Shimbun found that atleast 448 of the [TEPCO] companys executivesdonated a total of 5957 million yen ($777000)to a political fund-raising arm of the then ruling

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

9

[Liberal Democratic] party between 1995 and2009rdquo (October 8 20119) By contrastdissidents and anti-nuclear critics have beentreated as heretics or outcastes Pro-nucleargroups have tried to cover-up or minimize theseverity of the disaster and the (long-term)effects of radioactivity Major Japanese mediacolluded in part by restricting critical reportingand slighting the activities of protesters anddissidents In the case of the big mediavoluntary censorship was practiced to assurethat their single largest advertising sector theelectric power companies would continue theirlargesse

3 What information was withheld And whatare the implications for the public

There were ldquomany pieces of information theauthorities initially withheld from the publicrdquo(NY Times August 8 2011) One importantsource of information is computer-basedforecasts derived from the System forPrediction of Environmental Emergency DoseInformation or Speedi Speedi was developedto provide ldquomeasurements of radioactivereleases as well as weather and topographicaldata to predict where radioactive materialscould travel after being released into theatmosphererdquo (ibid) Its development reportedlytook more than 20 years and cost more than 10billion yen The New York Times wrote thatldquothe prime ministers office [under Kan]refused to release the results even after it wasmade aware of Speedi because officials theredid not want to take responsibility for costlyevacuations if their estimates were later calledinto questionrdquo (ibid) As a result the data ldquowasnot released to the public until three monthsafter the fact and only then in materials for aconference overseasrdquo (ibid)

In response to the crisis people living within20 km of the plant were ordered to evacuate asa safety precaution Without accurateinformation many other people outside theevacuation zone escaped to areas deemed

relatively safe Some later discovered that theyhad been exposed to high levels of radioactivefallout which spread unevenly over largeswathes of the Tohoku and Kanto regions in theimmediate aftermath of the accident Theforecast data was made public too late todistribute iodine pills Needless to sayexposure poses a range of potential healthproblems particularly increasing the risk ofthyroid cancer and other diseases includingheart disease for children (see Busby 2011Kodama 2011) Their exposure was neitherinescapable nor necessary The mayor of Namiein Fukushima charged that ldquoThe withholding ofinformation hellip was akin to murderrdquo (NY TimesAugust 8 2011)

4 What are the major facts about the nuclearaccident the Japanese authoritiesrsquo responsesand the Fukushima people as of October 28201110

A nuclear melt-through took place in thefirst reactor building of FukushimaDaiichi This is even more devastatingthan a core melt-down and it is highlylikely that nuclear fuel has meltedthrough the outer vessels directly intothe ground and groundwater near thecoast thus flowing into the seas andcontaminating them Since last MarchKoide Hiroaki has urged TEPCO to usetankers to capture and securely disposeof a massive amount of contaminatedgroundwater and to build walls in theground to prevent water from escapinginto the ocean (Tanemaki Journal RadioInterview October 25 2011) Thesuggested efforts have not been made Atthe second and third reactors whichexperienced full melt down workerscannot even enter the buildings becauseof the elevated levels of radioactivityMeanwhile TEPCO announced that theyhave accomplished reion teishi or coldshutdown According to Koide it isdeceitful to use the term since it

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

10

technically means that they are able tocool the nuclear fuel inside the reactorIn reality the fuel has already meltedand nobody knows where and how thefuel is situated and what its temperatureis (Interview with Koide by Jimbo TetsuoSeptember 8 2011) Thus nothingactually has improved since March Sincedetailed information has not been madepublic it is difficult even for nuclearexperts to understand the situation(Interviews with Koide by YoshidaTerumi October 17 2011)Although the exact amounts and levels ofradioactive materials being released intothe atmosphere are unknown it iscertain that large amounts of radioactivematerials have been dispersed not onlyacross the Tohoku and Kanto regions butworldwide including but not limited tothe most deadly substances notablycesium plutonium and strontiumisotopes (see the map on Fukushima ofCentre drsquoEnseignement et de Rechercheen Environnement Atmospheacuterique11) Tobe more precise comparison can bemade to historical data 800 grams ofuranium were burned when one atomicbomb annihilated Hiroshima city whileone ton of uranium is consumed eachyear at a nuclear power plant of onemillion kilowatts an amount that is over1000 times greater than the atomicbomb The amount of cesium-137released in the air from the FukushimaDaiichi indicated in the Japanesegovernmentrsquos report to the IAEA isequivalent to 170 bombs dropped inHiroshima This estimate does notinclude other radioactive materialsdispersed in soil and the cesium thatentered the Pacific Ocean Koidecautions that the governmentrsquos reportednumbers are bound to be underestimates(his speech on October 22 2011)Contamina t ion l eve l s o f l oca lenvironment foodstuffs and drinking

water in some areas exceed safetystandards The government hasresponded by raising the limits ofallowed exposure For example undernewly adopted Japanese regulations 500becquerels per kilogram of radioactivecesium in rice (the staple food for theJapanese ) i s cer t i f i ed sa fe fo rconsumption This is 500 times higherthan the limit established before March11 (Tanemaki Journal Radio InterviewOctober 12 2011) The Japanese authorities give the falseimpression that residents will be able toreturn to live in evacuated regions aftermassive cleanup efforts of contaminationBut in fact as in the case of Chernobylthe most contaminated areas will beuninhabitable for decades because ofhigh radiation levels The governmenthas not yet explained this to theevacuated people Moreover the disposalof massive amounts of hazardousradioactive materials and fallout remainsa large unresolved issue (TanemakiJournal Radio Interview October 18 andNovember 7 2011)The government continues to withholdthe Speedi data even though crisismanagement o f f i c ia l s in Sh igaPrefecture for example have repeatedlyrequested the information Shiga liesdownwind of Fukui Prefecture with afleet of aging nuclear reactors AlsoShigarsquos Lake Biwa provides drinkingwater for nearly 15 million people in theKansa i reg ion wh ich cou ld becontaminated should a similar accidentoccur Ko ide be l i eves tha t thegovernment refuses to release the databecause hazard maps will provideconclusive evidence of potential disasterareas and make many locals anti-nuclear(TV interview on October 20 2011Kansai net)At least 70000 people are still living intemporary accommodations eight months

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

6

311 earthquake tsunami and nuclear powermeltdown radioactive materials have heavilycontaminated the soil water air and food inthe Tohoku and Kanto regions and may enterthe food chain To make matters worse thesesubstances as in the case of Cesium-137 withits thirty year half-life will linger for decadesand profoundly affect peoples well-being TheNew York Times (August 8 2011) reported onthe immediate consequences for children inareas heavily affected by radiation ldquoTens ofthousands of children are being kept insideschool buildings this hot summer where somewear masks even though the windows are keptshut Many will soon be wearing individualdosimeters to track their exposure toradiationrdquo Similarly the Tokyo Shimbun(August 18 2011) reported on 37 letters fromthe children of Fukushima written togovernmental officials They wrote ldquoI wish toplay outside and breathe clean airrdquo ldquoI wishradiation to be gone I wish to be able to keep adogrdquo (5th grade girl) ldquoCan I give birth to anormal baby To what age will I be able toliverdquo (5th grade girl) Reflecting on questions ofinter-generational injustice the legacy of thecurrent generation of adults is to leave futuregenerations to bear the burden of nucleardisaster far into the future as documented byfilmmaker Michael Madsens Into Eternitywhich shows Finlandrsquos effort to dispose ofnuclear waste There the safe storage ofnuclear waste will require 100000 years beforeit becomes harmless

Rei Shivas photo shows the deserted town ofFutaba inside the 20-kilometer evacuationzone in Fukushima prefecture The irony is thatthe crossroad sign saying ldquoWith correctunderstanding of nuclear (we have) a yutakanalivingrdquo Another photographer Ota Yasusukeshows in his blog the photos of the companionanimals unintentionally abandoned after 311

We have reflected on the limits of economic-centered measurements for determiningwhether a country is rich and its people have asuperior quality of life Also we have reviewedSenrsquos warning that economy is just a meansand the possibility that policies based onldquoconfusions of ends and meansrdquo mayperniciously lead to misdiagnoses of socialproblems and misguided proposals for dealingwith social problems (Sen 2005 p 4)Nevertheless Japan has pursued its own pathof development in terms of GDP expansionperhaps neglecting ldquothe really valuable endsrdquoand the interests of many of its citizens aboveall future generations (Sen 2005 p 4)

Senrsquos theory of democratic governance andfamine prevention

Let us now turn to Amartya Sens work on thecauses of famines in non-democratic societiesIn ldquoDemocracy as a Universal Valuerdquo (1999)Sen reports ldquoIn the summer of 1997 I wasasked by a leading Japanese newspaper what Ithought was the most important thing that hadhappened in the twentieth centuryrdquo (Sen 1999p3) On reflection he replied ldquothe rise ofdemocracy (ibid)rdquo (Presumably it was not hisimplied criticism of Japanrsquos politics and themedia given the time of the interview) ForSen democracy is by no means limited tovoting and elections from among multipleparties Rather ldquodemocracy is best seen asgovernment by discussionrdquo namely peoplesparticipation and public reasoning (Sen 2009p 324) In his analysis of famine preventionSen emphasizes the importance of democracyand freedom of the press arguing that ldquono

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

7

major famine has ever occurred in afunctioning democracy with regular electionsopposition parties basic freedom of speech anda relatively free media (even when the countryis very poor and in a seriously adverse foodsituation)rdquo (ibid p 342) The Indian-bornprofessor gives many historical examples offamines ldquoThe prevalence of famines which hadbeen a persistent feature of the long history ofthe British Indian Empire ended abruptly withthe establishment of a democracy afterindependence (ibid)rdquo Another historicalexample was the massive famine in Chinaduring 1958-61 of the failed Great LeapForward which claimed close to 30 million oflives Sens theory about the close connectionbetween famines and non-democratic regimeshas been influential

Sen emphasizes four ways in which democracyplays important roles in famine prevention 1)intrinsic and constitutive importance 2)political incentive 3) instrumental andconstructive aspects 4) information (Sen2009 pp 342-345) First he argues thatdemocracy has an intrinsic and constitutiveimportance for human life and well-beingSecond when democratic governments areaccountable to their citizens they can besubject to uncensored media coverage andsevere public criticism This gives governmentsstrong political incentive to invest in famineprevention and eradication to retain powerThird famine-affected populations usuallymake up a small proportion of the totalpopulation which does not pose a very seriousthreat to the government ldquoWhat makes afamine such a political disaster for a rulinggovernment is [however] the reach of publicreasoning which moves and energizes a verylarge proportion of the general public toprotest and shout about the uncaringgovernment and to try to bring it down hellip Notleast of the achievements of democracy is itsability to make people take an interest throughpublic discussion in each others predicamentsand to have a better understanding of the lives

of othersrdquo (ibid pp 343-344) Thus Sen notesits instrumental role ldquodemocracy has animportant instrumental value in enhancing thehearing that people get in expressing andsupporting their claims to political attentionrdquo aswell as a constructive role ldquothe practice ofdemocracy gives citizens an opportunity tolearn from one another and helps society toform its values and priorities (Sen 1999 p 10)Fourth another vital aspect of democracy is aninformative role in disseminating informationand knowledge through broadcasters and thepress and that allows the government toreceive critical public scrutiny Sen writes onthe adverse aspects of non-democracy forinstance the failed Great Leap Forward asfollows

Indeed the lack of a free system of newsdistribution ultimately misled the governmentitself fed by its own propaganda and by rosyreports of local party officials hellip [The Chinesegovernment] did not substantially revise itsdisastrous policies hellip during the three famineyears The non-revision was possible not onlybecause of the lack of a political opposition andthe absence of an independent media but alsobecause the Chinese government itself did notsee the need to change its policies partlybecause it did not have enough information onthe extent to which the Great Leap Forwardhad failed (Sen 2009 pp 344-345)

In short Sen underlines that authoritarianregimes have historically tried to hide ordownplay the inconvenient facts of faminesand have failed to obtain accurate informationabout ongoing crises which resulted in undulydelaying taking the corrective measures andaggravating the humanitarian situationTherefore he concludes that a phenomenon offamine is a complex man-made disaster ratherthan a natural calamity

Failure of Information on Fukushima

When reflecting on media self-censorshipgovernment whitewashes and the history of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

8

India under British colonial rule thesehistorical events evoke memories of Japan Thecountry has experienced the post-occupationalrelationship with the USA extended GHQcensorship under occupation (Okuizumi 2000)continuous ldquoClient Staterdquo (Zokkoku) status(McCormack 2010) and a simulacrum of demo-cracy where the Liberal Democratic Party rulednearly non-stop for more than half a centuryuntil recently This history suggests that someof the important roles of democracy (ieinformative role) that Sen highlights may nothave functioned well in Japan Therefore I findhis critique peculiarly suggestive for analyzingthe current nuclear disaster of Japan andreflecting on democratic process

Let us review in a-question-and-answer formatwhat has happened so far at the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant of the TokyoElectric Power Co (TEPCO)

1 How did the Japanese authorities react in theearly days of the nuclear crisis after thecountry was struck by earthquake and tsunamion March 11

ldquo[S]afety officials insisted repeatedly throughthe day that radiation leaks outside the plantremained small and did not pose a major healthriskrdquo (NY Times March 12 2011) Meanwhilethe first third and fourth reactor buildings ofFukushima Daiichi massively exploded withindays (see Fujioka 2011 Hirose 2011) fourexplosions occurred by March 17 (ReutersMarch 17 2011)

ldquo[Yukio Edano the then chief cabinetsecretary] declined to speculate on what thegovernment could have done differently in thewake of the disaster on March 11 hellip He saidthe tsunami was beyond anyonersquos imaginationrebutt ing cr i t ics who have said thatgovernment regulators and the Tokyo ElectricPower Company hellip ignored warnings that thereactors were vulnerable Detractors hellip havealso said that nuclear regulators and the powercompany did not act fast enough to prevent the

explosions that damaged the reactor buildingsand that efforts to cool the reactors and spentfuel pools with helicopters and water cannonswere ineffectiverdquo (NY Times April 10 2011)

As the word ldquosouteigairdquo (beyond imagination)was often used to describe the FukushimaDaiichi accident at televised news conferencesthe authorities displayed confusion ill-preparedness insufficient knowledge ofnuclear and crisis leadership and at the sametime emphasized calming the public anddownplayed the severity of the nuclearaccident Given growing distrust of thegovernment TEPCO and the mainstreammedia many people turned to alternative(particularly online) media for reliableinformation The Ministry of Internal Affairsand Communications announcement calling formoderation in online news reports about theFukushima Daiichi reactors on April 6 2011was reminiscent of wartime informationmanagement with its heavy censorship7 Manyof its reactions echoed the daihonrsquoei happyouor force-feeding military propaganda conveyinghow well the war was going

2 Why has information been withheld

The authorities seem to have had strongpolitical incentives to withhold information asthey had long proudly insisted that a nuclearaccident will never happen in Japan (seeHirose 2011 Koide 2011) There is evidenceof a collusive nexus of vested interests sharedby government officials politicians nuclearindustry executives nuclear regulatorsacademics and the courts8 to promote thenuclear power industry and to protect itsinterests (see for example ldquonuclear villagerdquo inOsnos 2011 NY Times May 16 2011)Particularly power companies have exercisedhuge economic and political influence over thegovernment ldquoThe Asahi Shimbun found that atleast 448 of the [TEPCO] companys executivesdonated a total of 5957 million yen ($777000)to a political fund-raising arm of the then ruling

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

9

[Liberal Democratic] party between 1995 and2009rdquo (October 8 20119) By contrastdissidents and anti-nuclear critics have beentreated as heretics or outcastes Pro-nucleargroups have tried to cover-up or minimize theseverity of the disaster and the (long-term)effects of radioactivity Major Japanese mediacolluded in part by restricting critical reportingand slighting the activities of protesters anddissidents In the case of the big mediavoluntary censorship was practiced to assurethat their single largest advertising sector theelectric power companies would continue theirlargesse

3 What information was withheld And whatare the implications for the public

There were ldquomany pieces of information theauthorities initially withheld from the publicrdquo(NY Times August 8 2011) One importantsource of information is computer-basedforecasts derived from the System forPrediction of Environmental Emergency DoseInformation or Speedi Speedi was developedto provide ldquomeasurements of radioactivereleases as well as weather and topographicaldata to predict where radioactive materialscould travel after being released into theatmosphererdquo (ibid) Its development reportedlytook more than 20 years and cost more than 10billion yen The New York Times wrote thatldquothe prime ministers office [under Kan]refused to release the results even after it wasmade aware of Speedi because officials theredid not want to take responsibility for costlyevacuations if their estimates were later calledinto questionrdquo (ibid) As a result the data ldquowasnot released to the public until three monthsafter the fact and only then in materials for aconference overseasrdquo (ibid)

In response to the crisis people living within20 km of the plant were ordered to evacuate asa safety precaution Without accurateinformation many other people outside theevacuation zone escaped to areas deemed

relatively safe Some later discovered that theyhad been exposed to high levels of radioactivefallout which spread unevenly over largeswathes of the Tohoku and Kanto regions in theimmediate aftermath of the accident Theforecast data was made public too late todistribute iodine pills Needless to sayexposure poses a range of potential healthproblems particularly increasing the risk ofthyroid cancer and other diseases includingheart disease for children (see Busby 2011Kodama 2011) Their exposure was neitherinescapable nor necessary The mayor of Namiein Fukushima charged that ldquoThe withholding ofinformation hellip was akin to murderrdquo (NY TimesAugust 8 2011)

4 What are the major facts about the nuclearaccident the Japanese authoritiesrsquo responsesand the Fukushima people as of October 28201110

A nuclear melt-through took place in thefirst reactor building of FukushimaDaiichi This is even more devastatingthan a core melt-down and it is highlylikely that nuclear fuel has meltedthrough the outer vessels directly intothe ground and groundwater near thecoast thus flowing into the seas andcontaminating them Since last MarchKoide Hiroaki has urged TEPCO to usetankers to capture and securely disposeof a massive amount of contaminatedgroundwater and to build walls in theground to prevent water from escapinginto the ocean (Tanemaki Journal RadioInterview October 25 2011) Thesuggested efforts have not been made Atthe second and third reactors whichexperienced full melt down workerscannot even enter the buildings becauseof the elevated levels of radioactivityMeanwhile TEPCO announced that theyhave accomplished reion teishi or coldshutdown According to Koide it isdeceitful to use the term since it

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

10

technically means that they are able tocool the nuclear fuel inside the reactorIn reality the fuel has already meltedand nobody knows where and how thefuel is situated and what its temperatureis (Interview with Koide by Jimbo TetsuoSeptember 8 2011) Thus nothingactually has improved since March Sincedetailed information has not been madepublic it is difficult even for nuclearexperts to understand the situation(Interviews with Koide by YoshidaTerumi October 17 2011)Although the exact amounts and levels ofradioactive materials being released intothe atmosphere are unknown it iscertain that large amounts of radioactivematerials have been dispersed not onlyacross the Tohoku and Kanto regions butworldwide including but not limited tothe most deadly substances notablycesium plutonium and strontiumisotopes (see the map on Fukushima ofCentre drsquoEnseignement et de Rechercheen Environnement Atmospheacuterique11) Tobe more precise comparison can bemade to historical data 800 grams ofuranium were burned when one atomicbomb annihilated Hiroshima city whileone ton of uranium is consumed eachyear at a nuclear power plant of onemillion kilowatts an amount that is over1000 times greater than the atomicbomb The amount of cesium-137released in the air from the FukushimaDaiichi indicated in the Japanesegovernmentrsquos report to the IAEA isequivalent to 170 bombs dropped inHiroshima This estimate does notinclude other radioactive materialsdispersed in soil and the cesium thatentered the Pacific Ocean Koidecautions that the governmentrsquos reportednumbers are bound to be underestimates(his speech on October 22 2011)Contamina t ion l eve l s o f l oca lenvironment foodstuffs and drinking

water in some areas exceed safetystandards The government hasresponded by raising the limits ofallowed exposure For example undernewly adopted Japanese regulations 500becquerels per kilogram of radioactivecesium in rice (the staple food for theJapanese ) i s cer t i f i ed sa fe fo rconsumption This is 500 times higherthan the limit established before March11 (Tanemaki Journal Radio InterviewOctober 12 2011) The Japanese authorities give the falseimpression that residents will be able toreturn to live in evacuated regions aftermassive cleanup efforts of contaminationBut in fact as in the case of Chernobylthe most contaminated areas will beuninhabitable for decades because ofhigh radiation levels The governmenthas not yet explained this to theevacuated people Moreover the disposalof massive amounts of hazardousradioactive materials and fallout remainsa large unresolved issue (TanemakiJournal Radio Interview October 18 andNovember 7 2011)The government continues to withholdthe Speedi data even though crisismanagement o f f i c ia l s in Sh igaPrefecture for example have repeatedlyrequested the information Shiga liesdownwind of Fukui Prefecture with afleet of aging nuclear reactors AlsoShigarsquos Lake Biwa provides drinkingwater for nearly 15 million people in theKansa i reg ion wh ich cou ld becontaminated should a similar accidentoccur Ko ide be l i eves tha t thegovernment refuses to release the databecause hazard maps will provideconclusive evidence of potential disasterareas and make many locals anti-nuclear(TV interview on October 20 2011Kansai net)At least 70000 people are still living intemporary accommodations eight months

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

7

major famine has ever occurred in afunctioning democracy with regular electionsopposition parties basic freedom of speech anda relatively free media (even when the countryis very poor and in a seriously adverse foodsituation)rdquo (ibid p 342) The Indian-bornprofessor gives many historical examples offamines ldquoThe prevalence of famines which hadbeen a persistent feature of the long history ofthe British Indian Empire ended abruptly withthe establishment of a democracy afterindependence (ibid)rdquo Another historicalexample was the massive famine in Chinaduring 1958-61 of the failed Great LeapForward which claimed close to 30 million oflives Sens theory about the close connectionbetween famines and non-democratic regimeshas been influential

Sen emphasizes four ways in which democracyplays important roles in famine prevention 1)intrinsic and constitutive importance 2)political incentive 3) instrumental andconstructive aspects 4) information (Sen2009 pp 342-345) First he argues thatdemocracy has an intrinsic and constitutiveimportance for human life and well-beingSecond when democratic governments areaccountable to their citizens they can besubject to uncensored media coverage andsevere public criticism This gives governmentsstrong political incentive to invest in famineprevention and eradication to retain powerThird famine-affected populations usuallymake up a small proportion of the totalpopulation which does not pose a very seriousthreat to the government ldquoWhat makes afamine such a political disaster for a rulinggovernment is [however] the reach of publicreasoning which moves and energizes a verylarge proportion of the general public toprotest and shout about the uncaringgovernment and to try to bring it down hellip Notleast of the achievements of democracy is itsability to make people take an interest throughpublic discussion in each others predicamentsand to have a better understanding of the lives

of othersrdquo (ibid pp 343-344) Thus Sen notesits instrumental role ldquodemocracy has animportant instrumental value in enhancing thehearing that people get in expressing andsupporting their claims to political attentionrdquo aswell as a constructive role ldquothe practice ofdemocracy gives citizens an opportunity tolearn from one another and helps society toform its values and priorities (Sen 1999 p 10)Fourth another vital aspect of democracy is aninformative role in disseminating informationand knowledge through broadcasters and thepress and that allows the government toreceive critical public scrutiny Sen writes onthe adverse aspects of non-democracy forinstance the failed Great Leap Forward asfollows

Indeed the lack of a free system of newsdistribution ultimately misled the governmentitself fed by its own propaganda and by rosyreports of local party officials hellip [The Chinesegovernment] did not substantially revise itsdisastrous policies hellip during the three famineyears The non-revision was possible not onlybecause of the lack of a political opposition andthe absence of an independent media but alsobecause the Chinese government itself did notsee the need to change its policies partlybecause it did not have enough information onthe extent to which the Great Leap Forwardhad failed (Sen 2009 pp 344-345)

In short Sen underlines that authoritarianregimes have historically tried to hide ordownplay the inconvenient facts of faminesand have failed to obtain accurate informationabout ongoing crises which resulted in undulydelaying taking the corrective measures andaggravating the humanitarian situationTherefore he concludes that a phenomenon offamine is a complex man-made disaster ratherthan a natural calamity

Failure of Information on Fukushima

When reflecting on media self-censorshipgovernment whitewashes and the history of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

8

India under British colonial rule thesehistorical events evoke memories of Japan Thecountry has experienced the post-occupationalrelationship with the USA extended GHQcensorship under occupation (Okuizumi 2000)continuous ldquoClient Staterdquo (Zokkoku) status(McCormack 2010) and a simulacrum of demo-cracy where the Liberal Democratic Party rulednearly non-stop for more than half a centuryuntil recently This history suggests that someof the important roles of democracy (ieinformative role) that Sen highlights may nothave functioned well in Japan Therefore I findhis critique peculiarly suggestive for analyzingthe current nuclear disaster of Japan andreflecting on democratic process

Let us review in a-question-and-answer formatwhat has happened so far at the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant of the TokyoElectric Power Co (TEPCO)

1 How did the Japanese authorities react in theearly days of the nuclear crisis after thecountry was struck by earthquake and tsunamion March 11

ldquo[S]afety officials insisted repeatedly throughthe day that radiation leaks outside the plantremained small and did not pose a major healthriskrdquo (NY Times March 12 2011) Meanwhilethe first third and fourth reactor buildings ofFukushima Daiichi massively exploded withindays (see Fujioka 2011 Hirose 2011) fourexplosions occurred by March 17 (ReutersMarch 17 2011)

ldquo[Yukio Edano the then chief cabinetsecretary] declined to speculate on what thegovernment could have done differently in thewake of the disaster on March 11 hellip He saidthe tsunami was beyond anyonersquos imaginationrebutt ing cr i t ics who have said thatgovernment regulators and the Tokyo ElectricPower Company hellip ignored warnings that thereactors were vulnerable Detractors hellip havealso said that nuclear regulators and the powercompany did not act fast enough to prevent the

explosions that damaged the reactor buildingsand that efforts to cool the reactors and spentfuel pools with helicopters and water cannonswere ineffectiverdquo (NY Times April 10 2011)

As the word ldquosouteigairdquo (beyond imagination)was often used to describe the FukushimaDaiichi accident at televised news conferencesthe authorities displayed confusion ill-preparedness insufficient knowledge ofnuclear and crisis leadership and at the sametime emphasized calming the public anddownplayed the severity of the nuclearaccident Given growing distrust of thegovernment TEPCO and the mainstreammedia many people turned to alternative(particularly online) media for reliableinformation The Ministry of Internal Affairsand Communications announcement calling formoderation in online news reports about theFukushima Daiichi reactors on April 6 2011was reminiscent of wartime informationmanagement with its heavy censorship7 Manyof its reactions echoed the daihonrsquoei happyouor force-feeding military propaganda conveyinghow well the war was going

2 Why has information been withheld

The authorities seem to have had strongpolitical incentives to withhold information asthey had long proudly insisted that a nuclearaccident will never happen in Japan (seeHirose 2011 Koide 2011) There is evidenceof a collusive nexus of vested interests sharedby government officials politicians nuclearindustry executives nuclear regulatorsacademics and the courts8 to promote thenuclear power industry and to protect itsinterests (see for example ldquonuclear villagerdquo inOsnos 2011 NY Times May 16 2011)Particularly power companies have exercisedhuge economic and political influence over thegovernment ldquoThe Asahi Shimbun found that atleast 448 of the [TEPCO] companys executivesdonated a total of 5957 million yen ($777000)to a political fund-raising arm of the then ruling

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

9

[Liberal Democratic] party between 1995 and2009rdquo (October 8 20119) By contrastdissidents and anti-nuclear critics have beentreated as heretics or outcastes Pro-nucleargroups have tried to cover-up or minimize theseverity of the disaster and the (long-term)effects of radioactivity Major Japanese mediacolluded in part by restricting critical reportingand slighting the activities of protesters anddissidents In the case of the big mediavoluntary censorship was practiced to assurethat their single largest advertising sector theelectric power companies would continue theirlargesse

3 What information was withheld And whatare the implications for the public

There were ldquomany pieces of information theauthorities initially withheld from the publicrdquo(NY Times August 8 2011) One importantsource of information is computer-basedforecasts derived from the System forPrediction of Environmental Emergency DoseInformation or Speedi Speedi was developedto provide ldquomeasurements of radioactivereleases as well as weather and topographicaldata to predict where radioactive materialscould travel after being released into theatmosphererdquo (ibid) Its development reportedlytook more than 20 years and cost more than 10billion yen The New York Times wrote thatldquothe prime ministers office [under Kan]refused to release the results even after it wasmade aware of Speedi because officials theredid not want to take responsibility for costlyevacuations if their estimates were later calledinto questionrdquo (ibid) As a result the data ldquowasnot released to the public until three monthsafter the fact and only then in materials for aconference overseasrdquo (ibid)

In response to the crisis people living within20 km of the plant were ordered to evacuate asa safety precaution Without accurateinformation many other people outside theevacuation zone escaped to areas deemed

relatively safe Some later discovered that theyhad been exposed to high levels of radioactivefallout which spread unevenly over largeswathes of the Tohoku and Kanto regions in theimmediate aftermath of the accident Theforecast data was made public too late todistribute iodine pills Needless to sayexposure poses a range of potential healthproblems particularly increasing the risk ofthyroid cancer and other diseases includingheart disease for children (see Busby 2011Kodama 2011) Their exposure was neitherinescapable nor necessary The mayor of Namiein Fukushima charged that ldquoThe withholding ofinformation hellip was akin to murderrdquo (NY TimesAugust 8 2011)

4 What are the major facts about the nuclearaccident the Japanese authoritiesrsquo responsesand the Fukushima people as of October 28201110

A nuclear melt-through took place in thefirst reactor building of FukushimaDaiichi This is even more devastatingthan a core melt-down and it is highlylikely that nuclear fuel has meltedthrough the outer vessels directly intothe ground and groundwater near thecoast thus flowing into the seas andcontaminating them Since last MarchKoide Hiroaki has urged TEPCO to usetankers to capture and securely disposeof a massive amount of contaminatedgroundwater and to build walls in theground to prevent water from escapinginto the ocean (Tanemaki Journal RadioInterview October 25 2011) Thesuggested efforts have not been made Atthe second and third reactors whichexperienced full melt down workerscannot even enter the buildings becauseof the elevated levels of radioactivityMeanwhile TEPCO announced that theyhave accomplished reion teishi or coldshutdown According to Koide it isdeceitful to use the term since it

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

10

technically means that they are able tocool the nuclear fuel inside the reactorIn reality the fuel has already meltedand nobody knows where and how thefuel is situated and what its temperatureis (Interview with Koide by Jimbo TetsuoSeptember 8 2011) Thus nothingactually has improved since March Sincedetailed information has not been madepublic it is difficult even for nuclearexperts to understand the situation(Interviews with Koide by YoshidaTerumi October 17 2011)Although the exact amounts and levels ofradioactive materials being released intothe atmosphere are unknown it iscertain that large amounts of radioactivematerials have been dispersed not onlyacross the Tohoku and Kanto regions butworldwide including but not limited tothe most deadly substances notablycesium plutonium and strontiumisotopes (see the map on Fukushima ofCentre drsquoEnseignement et de Rechercheen Environnement Atmospheacuterique11) Tobe more precise comparison can bemade to historical data 800 grams ofuranium were burned when one atomicbomb annihilated Hiroshima city whileone ton of uranium is consumed eachyear at a nuclear power plant of onemillion kilowatts an amount that is over1000 times greater than the atomicbomb The amount of cesium-137released in the air from the FukushimaDaiichi indicated in the Japanesegovernmentrsquos report to the IAEA isequivalent to 170 bombs dropped inHiroshima This estimate does notinclude other radioactive materialsdispersed in soil and the cesium thatentered the Pacific Ocean Koidecautions that the governmentrsquos reportednumbers are bound to be underestimates(his speech on October 22 2011)Contamina t ion l eve l s o f l oca lenvironment foodstuffs and drinking

water in some areas exceed safetystandards The government hasresponded by raising the limits ofallowed exposure For example undernewly adopted Japanese regulations 500becquerels per kilogram of radioactivecesium in rice (the staple food for theJapanese ) i s cer t i f i ed sa fe fo rconsumption This is 500 times higherthan the limit established before March11 (Tanemaki Journal Radio InterviewOctober 12 2011) The Japanese authorities give the falseimpression that residents will be able toreturn to live in evacuated regions aftermassive cleanup efforts of contaminationBut in fact as in the case of Chernobylthe most contaminated areas will beuninhabitable for decades because ofhigh radiation levels The governmenthas not yet explained this to theevacuated people Moreover the disposalof massive amounts of hazardousradioactive materials and fallout remainsa large unresolved issue (TanemakiJournal Radio Interview October 18 andNovember 7 2011)The government continues to withholdthe Speedi data even though crisismanagement o f f i c ia l s in Sh igaPrefecture for example have repeatedlyrequested the information Shiga liesdownwind of Fukui Prefecture with afleet of aging nuclear reactors AlsoShigarsquos Lake Biwa provides drinkingwater for nearly 15 million people in theKansa i reg ion wh ich cou ld becontaminated should a similar accidentoccur Ko ide be l i eves tha t thegovernment refuses to release the databecause hazard maps will provideconclusive evidence of potential disasterareas and make many locals anti-nuclear(TV interview on October 20 2011Kansai net)At least 70000 people are still living intemporary accommodations eight months

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

8

India under British colonial rule thesehistorical events evoke memories of Japan Thecountry has experienced the post-occupationalrelationship with the USA extended GHQcensorship under occupation (Okuizumi 2000)continuous ldquoClient Staterdquo (Zokkoku) status(McCormack 2010) and a simulacrum of demo-cracy where the Liberal Democratic Party rulednearly non-stop for more than half a centuryuntil recently This history suggests that someof the important roles of democracy (ieinformative role) that Sen highlights may nothave functioned well in Japan Therefore I findhis critique peculiarly suggestive for analyzingthe current nuclear disaster of Japan andreflecting on democratic process

Let us review in a-question-and-answer formatwhat has happened so far at the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant of the TokyoElectric Power Co (TEPCO)

1 How did the Japanese authorities react in theearly days of the nuclear crisis after thecountry was struck by earthquake and tsunamion March 11

ldquo[S]afety officials insisted repeatedly throughthe day that radiation leaks outside the plantremained small and did not pose a major healthriskrdquo (NY Times March 12 2011) Meanwhilethe first third and fourth reactor buildings ofFukushima Daiichi massively exploded withindays (see Fujioka 2011 Hirose 2011) fourexplosions occurred by March 17 (ReutersMarch 17 2011)

ldquo[Yukio Edano the then chief cabinetsecretary] declined to speculate on what thegovernment could have done differently in thewake of the disaster on March 11 hellip He saidthe tsunami was beyond anyonersquos imaginationrebutt ing cr i t ics who have said thatgovernment regulators and the Tokyo ElectricPower Company hellip ignored warnings that thereactors were vulnerable Detractors hellip havealso said that nuclear regulators and the powercompany did not act fast enough to prevent the

explosions that damaged the reactor buildingsand that efforts to cool the reactors and spentfuel pools with helicopters and water cannonswere ineffectiverdquo (NY Times April 10 2011)

As the word ldquosouteigairdquo (beyond imagination)was often used to describe the FukushimaDaiichi accident at televised news conferencesthe authorities displayed confusion ill-preparedness insufficient knowledge ofnuclear and crisis leadership and at the sametime emphasized calming the public anddownplayed the severity of the nuclearaccident Given growing distrust of thegovernment TEPCO and the mainstreammedia many people turned to alternative(particularly online) media for reliableinformation The Ministry of Internal Affairsand Communications announcement calling formoderation in online news reports about theFukushima Daiichi reactors on April 6 2011was reminiscent of wartime informationmanagement with its heavy censorship7 Manyof its reactions echoed the daihonrsquoei happyouor force-feeding military propaganda conveyinghow well the war was going

2 Why has information been withheld

The authorities seem to have had strongpolitical incentives to withhold information asthey had long proudly insisted that a nuclearaccident will never happen in Japan (seeHirose 2011 Koide 2011) There is evidenceof a collusive nexus of vested interests sharedby government officials politicians nuclearindustry executives nuclear regulatorsacademics and the courts8 to promote thenuclear power industry and to protect itsinterests (see for example ldquonuclear villagerdquo inOsnos 2011 NY Times May 16 2011)Particularly power companies have exercisedhuge economic and political influence over thegovernment ldquoThe Asahi Shimbun found that atleast 448 of the [TEPCO] companys executivesdonated a total of 5957 million yen ($777000)to a political fund-raising arm of the then ruling

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

9

[Liberal Democratic] party between 1995 and2009rdquo (October 8 20119) By contrastdissidents and anti-nuclear critics have beentreated as heretics or outcastes Pro-nucleargroups have tried to cover-up or minimize theseverity of the disaster and the (long-term)effects of radioactivity Major Japanese mediacolluded in part by restricting critical reportingand slighting the activities of protesters anddissidents In the case of the big mediavoluntary censorship was practiced to assurethat their single largest advertising sector theelectric power companies would continue theirlargesse

3 What information was withheld And whatare the implications for the public

There were ldquomany pieces of information theauthorities initially withheld from the publicrdquo(NY Times August 8 2011) One importantsource of information is computer-basedforecasts derived from the System forPrediction of Environmental Emergency DoseInformation or Speedi Speedi was developedto provide ldquomeasurements of radioactivereleases as well as weather and topographicaldata to predict where radioactive materialscould travel after being released into theatmosphererdquo (ibid) Its development reportedlytook more than 20 years and cost more than 10billion yen The New York Times wrote thatldquothe prime ministers office [under Kan]refused to release the results even after it wasmade aware of Speedi because officials theredid not want to take responsibility for costlyevacuations if their estimates were later calledinto questionrdquo (ibid) As a result the data ldquowasnot released to the public until three monthsafter the fact and only then in materials for aconference overseasrdquo (ibid)

In response to the crisis people living within20 km of the plant were ordered to evacuate asa safety precaution Without accurateinformation many other people outside theevacuation zone escaped to areas deemed

relatively safe Some later discovered that theyhad been exposed to high levels of radioactivefallout which spread unevenly over largeswathes of the Tohoku and Kanto regions in theimmediate aftermath of the accident Theforecast data was made public too late todistribute iodine pills Needless to sayexposure poses a range of potential healthproblems particularly increasing the risk ofthyroid cancer and other diseases includingheart disease for children (see Busby 2011Kodama 2011) Their exposure was neitherinescapable nor necessary The mayor of Namiein Fukushima charged that ldquoThe withholding ofinformation hellip was akin to murderrdquo (NY TimesAugust 8 2011)

4 What are the major facts about the nuclearaccident the Japanese authoritiesrsquo responsesand the Fukushima people as of October 28201110

A nuclear melt-through took place in thefirst reactor building of FukushimaDaiichi This is even more devastatingthan a core melt-down and it is highlylikely that nuclear fuel has meltedthrough the outer vessels directly intothe ground and groundwater near thecoast thus flowing into the seas andcontaminating them Since last MarchKoide Hiroaki has urged TEPCO to usetankers to capture and securely disposeof a massive amount of contaminatedgroundwater and to build walls in theground to prevent water from escapinginto the ocean (Tanemaki Journal RadioInterview October 25 2011) Thesuggested efforts have not been made Atthe second and third reactors whichexperienced full melt down workerscannot even enter the buildings becauseof the elevated levels of radioactivityMeanwhile TEPCO announced that theyhave accomplished reion teishi or coldshutdown According to Koide it isdeceitful to use the term since it

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

10

technically means that they are able tocool the nuclear fuel inside the reactorIn reality the fuel has already meltedand nobody knows where and how thefuel is situated and what its temperatureis (Interview with Koide by Jimbo TetsuoSeptember 8 2011) Thus nothingactually has improved since March Sincedetailed information has not been madepublic it is difficult even for nuclearexperts to understand the situation(Interviews with Koide by YoshidaTerumi October 17 2011)Although the exact amounts and levels ofradioactive materials being released intothe atmosphere are unknown it iscertain that large amounts of radioactivematerials have been dispersed not onlyacross the Tohoku and Kanto regions butworldwide including but not limited tothe most deadly substances notablycesium plutonium and strontiumisotopes (see the map on Fukushima ofCentre drsquoEnseignement et de Rechercheen Environnement Atmospheacuterique11) Tobe more precise comparison can bemade to historical data 800 grams ofuranium were burned when one atomicbomb annihilated Hiroshima city whileone ton of uranium is consumed eachyear at a nuclear power plant of onemillion kilowatts an amount that is over1000 times greater than the atomicbomb The amount of cesium-137released in the air from the FukushimaDaiichi indicated in the Japanesegovernmentrsquos report to the IAEA isequivalent to 170 bombs dropped inHiroshima This estimate does notinclude other radioactive materialsdispersed in soil and the cesium thatentered the Pacific Ocean Koidecautions that the governmentrsquos reportednumbers are bound to be underestimates(his speech on October 22 2011)Contamina t ion l eve l s o f l oca lenvironment foodstuffs and drinking

water in some areas exceed safetystandards The government hasresponded by raising the limits ofallowed exposure For example undernewly adopted Japanese regulations 500becquerels per kilogram of radioactivecesium in rice (the staple food for theJapanese ) i s cer t i f i ed sa fe fo rconsumption This is 500 times higherthan the limit established before March11 (Tanemaki Journal Radio InterviewOctober 12 2011) The Japanese authorities give the falseimpression that residents will be able toreturn to live in evacuated regions aftermassive cleanup efforts of contaminationBut in fact as in the case of Chernobylthe most contaminated areas will beuninhabitable for decades because ofhigh radiation levels The governmenthas not yet explained this to theevacuated people Moreover the disposalof massive amounts of hazardousradioactive materials and fallout remainsa large unresolved issue (TanemakiJournal Radio Interview October 18 andNovember 7 2011)The government continues to withholdthe Speedi data even though crisismanagement o f f i c ia l s in Sh igaPrefecture for example have repeatedlyrequested the information Shiga liesdownwind of Fukui Prefecture with afleet of aging nuclear reactors AlsoShigarsquos Lake Biwa provides drinkingwater for nearly 15 million people in theKansa i reg ion wh ich cou ld becontaminated should a similar accidentoccur Ko ide be l i eves tha t thegovernment refuses to release the databecause hazard maps will provideconclusive evidence of potential disasterareas and make many locals anti-nuclear(TV interview on October 20 2011Kansai net)At least 70000 people are still living intemporary accommodations eight months

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

9

[Liberal Democratic] party between 1995 and2009rdquo (October 8 20119) By contrastdissidents and anti-nuclear critics have beentreated as heretics or outcastes Pro-nucleargroups have tried to cover-up or minimize theseverity of the disaster and the (long-term)effects of radioactivity Major Japanese mediacolluded in part by restricting critical reportingand slighting the activities of protesters anddissidents In the case of the big mediavoluntary censorship was practiced to assurethat their single largest advertising sector theelectric power companies would continue theirlargesse

3 What information was withheld And whatare the implications for the public

There were ldquomany pieces of information theauthorities initially withheld from the publicrdquo(NY Times August 8 2011) One importantsource of information is computer-basedforecasts derived from the System forPrediction of Environmental Emergency DoseInformation or Speedi Speedi was developedto provide ldquomeasurements of radioactivereleases as well as weather and topographicaldata to predict where radioactive materialscould travel after being released into theatmosphererdquo (ibid) Its development reportedlytook more than 20 years and cost more than 10billion yen The New York Times wrote thatldquothe prime ministers office [under Kan]refused to release the results even after it wasmade aware of Speedi because officials theredid not want to take responsibility for costlyevacuations if their estimates were later calledinto questionrdquo (ibid) As a result the data ldquowasnot released to the public until three monthsafter the fact and only then in materials for aconference overseasrdquo (ibid)

In response to the crisis people living within20 km of the plant were ordered to evacuate asa safety precaution Without accurateinformation many other people outside theevacuation zone escaped to areas deemed

relatively safe Some later discovered that theyhad been exposed to high levels of radioactivefallout which spread unevenly over largeswathes of the Tohoku and Kanto regions in theimmediate aftermath of the accident Theforecast data was made public too late todistribute iodine pills Needless to sayexposure poses a range of potential healthproblems particularly increasing the risk ofthyroid cancer and other diseases includingheart disease for children (see Busby 2011Kodama 2011) Their exposure was neitherinescapable nor necessary The mayor of Namiein Fukushima charged that ldquoThe withholding ofinformation hellip was akin to murderrdquo (NY TimesAugust 8 2011)

4 What are the major facts about the nuclearaccident the Japanese authoritiesrsquo responsesand the Fukushima people as of October 28201110

A nuclear melt-through took place in thefirst reactor building of FukushimaDaiichi This is even more devastatingthan a core melt-down and it is highlylikely that nuclear fuel has meltedthrough the outer vessels directly intothe ground and groundwater near thecoast thus flowing into the seas andcontaminating them Since last MarchKoide Hiroaki has urged TEPCO to usetankers to capture and securely disposeof a massive amount of contaminatedgroundwater and to build walls in theground to prevent water from escapinginto the ocean (Tanemaki Journal RadioInterview October 25 2011) Thesuggested efforts have not been made Atthe second and third reactors whichexperienced full melt down workerscannot even enter the buildings becauseof the elevated levels of radioactivityMeanwhile TEPCO announced that theyhave accomplished reion teishi or coldshutdown According to Koide it isdeceitful to use the term since it

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

10

technically means that they are able tocool the nuclear fuel inside the reactorIn reality the fuel has already meltedand nobody knows where and how thefuel is situated and what its temperatureis (Interview with Koide by Jimbo TetsuoSeptember 8 2011) Thus nothingactually has improved since March Sincedetailed information has not been madepublic it is difficult even for nuclearexperts to understand the situation(Interviews with Koide by YoshidaTerumi October 17 2011)Although the exact amounts and levels ofradioactive materials being released intothe atmosphere are unknown it iscertain that large amounts of radioactivematerials have been dispersed not onlyacross the Tohoku and Kanto regions butworldwide including but not limited tothe most deadly substances notablycesium plutonium and strontiumisotopes (see the map on Fukushima ofCentre drsquoEnseignement et de Rechercheen Environnement Atmospheacuterique11) Tobe more precise comparison can bemade to historical data 800 grams ofuranium were burned when one atomicbomb annihilated Hiroshima city whileone ton of uranium is consumed eachyear at a nuclear power plant of onemillion kilowatts an amount that is over1000 times greater than the atomicbomb The amount of cesium-137released in the air from the FukushimaDaiichi indicated in the Japanesegovernmentrsquos report to the IAEA isequivalent to 170 bombs dropped inHiroshima This estimate does notinclude other radioactive materialsdispersed in soil and the cesium thatentered the Pacific Ocean Koidecautions that the governmentrsquos reportednumbers are bound to be underestimates(his speech on October 22 2011)Contamina t ion l eve l s o f l oca lenvironment foodstuffs and drinking

water in some areas exceed safetystandards The government hasresponded by raising the limits ofallowed exposure For example undernewly adopted Japanese regulations 500becquerels per kilogram of radioactivecesium in rice (the staple food for theJapanese ) i s cer t i f i ed sa fe fo rconsumption This is 500 times higherthan the limit established before March11 (Tanemaki Journal Radio InterviewOctober 12 2011) The Japanese authorities give the falseimpression that residents will be able toreturn to live in evacuated regions aftermassive cleanup efforts of contaminationBut in fact as in the case of Chernobylthe most contaminated areas will beuninhabitable for decades because ofhigh radiation levels The governmenthas not yet explained this to theevacuated people Moreover the disposalof massive amounts of hazardousradioactive materials and fallout remainsa large unresolved issue (TanemakiJournal Radio Interview October 18 andNovember 7 2011)The government continues to withholdthe Speedi data even though crisismanagement o f f i c ia l s in Sh igaPrefecture for example have repeatedlyrequested the information Shiga liesdownwind of Fukui Prefecture with afleet of aging nuclear reactors AlsoShigarsquos Lake Biwa provides drinkingwater for nearly 15 million people in theKansa i reg ion wh ich cou ld becontaminated should a similar accidentoccur Ko ide be l i eves tha t thegovernment refuses to release the databecause hazard maps will provideconclusive evidence of potential disasterareas and make many locals anti-nuclear(TV interview on October 20 2011Kansai net)At least 70000 people are still living intemporary accommodations eight months

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

10

technically means that they are able tocool the nuclear fuel inside the reactorIn reality the fuel has already meltedand nobody knows where and how thefuel is situated and what its temperatureis (Interview with Koide by Jimbo TetsuoSeptember 8 2011) Thus nothingactually has improved since March Sincedetailed information has not been madepublic it is difficult even for nuclearexperts to understand the situation(Interviews with Koide by YoshidaTerumi October 17 2011)Although the exact amounts and levels ofradioactive materials being released intothe atmosphere are unknown it iscertain that large amounts of radioactivematerials have been dispersed not onlyacross the Tohoku and Kanto regions butworldwide including but not limited tothe most deadly substances notablycesium plutonium and strontiumisotopes (see the map on Fukushima ofCentre drsquoEnseignement et de Rechercheen Environnement Atmospheacuterique11) Tobe more precise comparison can bemade to historical data 800 grams ofuranium were burned when one atomicbomb annihilated Hiroshima city whileone ton of uranium is consumed eachyear at a nuclear power plant of onemillion kilowatts an amount that is over1000 times greater than the atomicbomb The amount of cesium-137released in the air from the FukushimaDaiichi indicated in the Japanesegovernmentrsquos report to the IAEA isequivalent to 170 bombs dropped inHiroshima This estimate does notinclude other radioactive materialsdispersed in soil and the cesium thatentered the Pacific Ocean Koidecautions that the governmentrsquos reportednumbers are bound to be underestimates(his speech on October 22 2011)Contamina t ion l eve l s o f l oca lenvironment foodstuffs and drinking

water in some areas exceed safetystandards The government hasresponded by raising the limits ofallowed exposure For example undernewly adopted Japanese regulations 500becquerels per kilogram of radioactivecesium in rice (the staple food for theJapanese ) i s cer t i f i ed sa fe fo rconsumption This is 500 times higherthan the limit established before March11 (Tanemaki Journal Radio InterviewOctober 12 2011) The Japanese authorities give the falseimpression that residents will be able toreturn to live in evacuated regions aftermassive cleanup efforts of contaminationBut in fact as in the case of Chernobylthe most contaminated areas will beuninhabitable for decades because ofhigh radiation levels The governmenthas not yet explained this to theevacuated people Moreover the disposalof massive amounts of hazardousradioactive materials and fallout remainsa large unresolved issue (TanemakiJournal Radio Interview October 18 andNovember 7 2011)The government continues to withholdthe Speedi data even though crisismanagement o f f i c ia l s in Sh igaPrefecture for example have repeatedlyrequested the information Shiga liesdownwind of Fukui Prefecture with afleet of aging nuclear reactors AlsoShigarsquos Lake Biwa provides drinkingwater for nearly 15 million people in theKansa i reg ion wh ich cou ld becontaminated should a similar accidentoccur Ko ide be l i eves tha t thegovernment refuses to release the databecause hazard maps will provideconclusive evidence of potential disasterareas and make many locals anti-nuclear(TV interview on October 20 2011Kansai net)At least 70000 people are still living intemporary accommodations eight months

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

11

after the disaster with little indication ofwhere they may be able to settle and findwork Given minimal assistance from theauthorities some Fukushima people callthemselves kimin12 those who areabandoned by the government

5 How has the Japanese public reacted

On the one hand anti-nuclear sentiment hasbeen gaining ground Nearly 60000 peopleparticipated in the anti-nuclear demonstrationon September 19 2011 in Tokyo Also aprotest petition (Goodbye to Nuclear PowerPlants 10000000 Peoplersquos Petition13) has beenorganized Moreover many citizen groups(including those who are new to politicalactivism) stage anti-nuclear demonstrationsand protests in front of TEPCO headquartersand the Ministry of Economy Trade andIndustry14 that oversees the nuclear powerindustry to call for an immediate shutdown ofnuclear power plants in Japan These citizensgroups include Fukushima women15 Japanesewomen and feminists16 parents17 and Buddhistmonks at Eihei-ji which has eight millionfollowers (the Tokyo Shimbun October 72011) Moreover various citizens groups havetested for radiation in their communities andfound hot spots contaminated with potentiallyharmful levels of radiation (NY Times October14 2011) These anti-nuclear demonstrationsand citizensrsquo testing can be seen as a processldquoof public reasoning which moves andenergizes a very large proportion of the generalpublic to protest and shout about the uncaringgovernmentrdquo (Sen 2009 p 343)

Above all the trend of public opinion onnuclear energy after the accident has gone intoreverse A nationwide opinion poll (April 4)conducted three weeks after the Fukushimadisaster by the Yomiuri Shimbun still found thatthe majority favored nuclear power plants thecountryrsquos nuclear power plants should beincreased (10) the status quo maintained(46) decreased (29) and abolished totally

(12) A public opinion poll (September 27)conducted by the Japan Atomic EnergyCommission (Cabinet Office) found that themajority opposed nuclear power plants (98)the country should abandon nuclear powerimmediately (67) and phase-out (31) Theimportant reasons included the lasting harmfulimpact of nuclear power on the environmentJapanrsquos frequency of earthquakes and the un-resolved issues of nuclear waste On the otherhand with continued government suppressionof information many Japanese seem to beunaware of the magnitude of the continuingnuclear disaster and its consequences

The Japanese government claims that theFukushima Daiichi plant has been restored to arelatively stable condition but its suppressionof critical data strengthens suspicion that theclaim is at best optimistic at worst patentlyfalse Meanwhile workers in the reactorreceiving significant doses of radiation makecontinuous efforts to contain the ongoingdisaster which by some measures may proveto be the worst nuclear crisis in human history(AFP news October 27 2011) Already thenuclear accident has robbed tens of thousandsof people of their livelihood their homes andtheir future while scores of thousands morelost everything in the earthquake tsunamiincluding an estimated 25000 dead or missingand scores of thousands of homes farms andbusinesses

Nevertheless the mainstream media in Japanand internationally pay scant attention to thecontinuing crisis as if the problems werealready solved Indeed global publicdiscussion which peaked in the weeks after311 is presently limited Or even if reportedinternationally the implications andconsequences of the nuclear accident aregreatly underrated For example Evan Osnosin The New Yorker writes ldquoBut for a while theFukushima meltdowns have returned nucleartechnology to its rightful place a target forvigilance scrutiny and a healthy degree of

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

12

fearrdquo (For more information see the box) Bycontrast many respected nuclear experts suchas Takagi Jinzaburo and Koide Hiroaki havewarned that there is no absolute safe thresholdfor human exposure to radiation

How many people were killed so far by theChernobyl nuclear disaster(httpyoutubeFCQI_s5U6CE)Evan Osnos reports on the long-term effects of the1986 Chernobyl accident as follows ldquoFivethousand cases have been discovered but mostare treatable so far approximately ten peoplehave died According to the World HealthOrganization Chernobyl will eventually haveshortened the lives of four thousand peoplerdquoJanette Sherman however argues that the numberof casualties is nearly 250 times higher thanreported above Dr Sherman is a specialist ininternal medicine and toxicology and has editedthe book titled Chernobyl Consequences of theCatastrophe for People and the Environmentoriginally published by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009 the book concludes that thedeath toll from the accident between 1986 and2004 was 985000 many died in utero Sheexplains the discrepancy in numbers between thebook and the data given byinternational organizations such as the WHO as fol-lows The book she edited is drawn on over 5000medical data (by those who actually observed theeffects of exposure of Chernobyl includingmedical doctors veterinarians epidemiologistswritten in Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian)while the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) for example that promotes the use ofnuclear energy gives the conservative estimate ofvictims (ie four thousand causalities) which isbased on 350 mainly English articles The bookalso criticizes the WHO which has a 1959 agree-ment with the IAEA where one institution will notrelease a report without agreement of the otherwhich explains the consistent estimate ofcasualties between two institutions

If many Japanese citizens outside Tohoku donot see themselves as victims or potentialvictims of serious radiation poisoning it may bedue in part to the informational problems wehave pointed to suggesting the need tocompare the outcomes o f famine inauthoritarian regimes as reviewed above Thedanger is that lack of information will hinder

people from understanding the nature andextent of the famines and finding best solutionsfor dealing with them There are of coursesome major differences between the twosituations Famines wereare generallyspeaking short-range visible and regionallyconfined phenomena however horrific In theworst cases millions or even tens of millionsmay die of malnutrition and disease and theproblem may span several years By contrastradiation is completely invisible to human eyesodorless tasteless and may spread across longdistances through air and water But exposureto radiation may have long lasting impact onthe health of those exposed to it not to mentionunborn children The Fukushima disaster willaffect the environment throughout NortheastJapan East Asia and worldwide including landsea and air On the positive side the globallyinteractive 21st century including the press anda range of social media offer platforms forinformation distribution that increase thedifficulty of suppressing inconvenient facts Astime has passed since 311 many people beganto doubt the credibility of Japanese governmentand corporate reports and the news providedby major media on Fukushima The result hasbeen a f irestorm of independent andsometimes critical assessments of official dataattempts at independent data collection andattention to reports official unofficial andonline in Japanese English and otherlanguages This multiplicity of sourceslanguages and locations makes it possible toredeem the promise of democratic governancefrom below to act as a check on governmentand to require it to take responsible action toinform and protect people from the dangersposed by the multiple 311 disasters

Conclusion

We have explored Japans recent experiencesbased on the capability approach and seen thatGDP figures may conceal negative impacts ofgrowth on sustainability environmentdistribution and different social groups (eg

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

13

children nuclear gypsies kaso people minoritynationalities) This paper concludes thatJapanrsquos Fukushima disaster is a hybrid disasterresulting from a compound of both natural andman-made factors Elements of the multiplecrises and devastation caused by naturaldisasters such as the earthquake and tsunamican be resolved by repairing rebuilding andrestoring the infrastructure of affected areasThe human-made disasters are however muchmore difficult to resolve and it is here that thecapability approach can offer practicalguidance on how to reconstruct the countryWhat must be done immediately in the wake of311 is to implement emergency measures toprotect children and pregnant women fromhigh levels of radiation (see the petition18) It isalso essential to strengthen Japans grassrootsdemocracy to embrace plurality of argumentspeople-led politics independent media andpublic participation to collectively assuregovernment responsiveness to public concernsaccountability and good governance This isnot impossible It is evidenced in the significantincrease of alternative information sites andgrowing anti-nuclear activism ranging fromelectronic media to mass demonstrations andalternative energy approaches As Sen (2009)points out the practice of democracy is not aforeign concept or imported practice in Japanindeed a concept of ldquogovernment bydiscussionrdquo already existed in the era ofShotoku Taishi in the early seventh-centurylong before Englandrsquos Magna Carta

Nevertheless it is likely that Japan willcontinue to pay for the ldquocostly confusions ofends and meansrdquo of the past (Sen 2005 p 4)To avoid the same old mistakes and confusionsover yutakasa the country needs to restoremoral order and to make a seismic shift fromGDP-oriented policy designs to capabilities andhuman development-focused ones which willgive the country a firm sense of direction Thiswill require breaking the iron nexus betweencorporate power as represented by TEPCO andpower companies on the one hand and the

government and major media on the other Theevents of 311 and their aftermath can help ourcountry to recognize that ldquopeople are the realwealth of nationsrdquo19 and that a decent yutakanasociety should strive for an expansiveconception of citizenship that will makepossible the improvement of quality of life forall citizens present and future as well ascontributing to the global community

Acknowledgment I am deeply indebted toMark Selden for his help The paper wasgreatly improved thanks to his comments andediting I felt as if I had been powered by ldquohisexoskeleton suitrdquo to express my ideas inEnglish

Sources

Abe A (2008) Child poverty (子どもの貧困　日本の不公平を考える) Tokyo Iwanami shoten

Atkinson T Cantillon B Marlier Eco ampNolan B (2002) Social indicators The EU andSocial Inclusion Oxford University Press USA

Busby C (httpsapjjforg-Mark-Selden3609)(2011) Fukushima Children at Risk of HeartDisease The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue39 No 4 September 26

David A Dusinberre M Evans N MatanleP amp Mizohata S (2011) Chapter 1Introducing Japanrsquos Shrinking Regions inMatanle P Rausch A amp Shrinking RegionsResearch Group T (2011) Japanrsquos ShrinkingRegions in the 21st Century ContemporaryResponses to Depopulation and SocioeconomicDecline New York Cambria Press

Feldhoff T Mizohata S Seaton P (2011)Chapter 6 Redeveloping Japanrsquos Regions inMatanle P Rausch A amp Shrinking RegionsResearch Group T (2011) Japanrsquos ShrinkingRegions in the 21st Century ContemporaryResponses to Depopulation and Socioeconomic

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

14

Decline New York Cambria Press

Foster J E amp Handy C (2008) ExternalCapabilities Oxford Retrieved from here(httpophiqehoxacukpubsOPHI_WP8pdf)

F u j i o k a A (httpsapjjforg-Fujioka-Atsushi3599) (2011)Understanding the Ongoing Nuclear Disasterin Fukushima A ldquoTwo-Headed DragonrdquoDescends into the Earthrsquos Biosphere The Asia-Pacif ic Journal Vol 9 Issue 37 No 3September 12

H i r o s e T (httpsapjjforg-Hirose-Takashi3606) (2011)Japanrsquos Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear DisasterSyndrome An Unprecedented Form ofCatastrophe The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9Issue 39 No 1 September 26

Jobin P (httpsapjjforg-Paul-Jobin3523)(2011) lsquoDying for TEPCO FukushimarsquosNuclear Contract Workersrsquo The Asia-PacificJournal Vol 9 Issue 18 No 3 May 2 2011

Kodama T (2011) Radiation Effects on HealthProtect the Children of Fukushima The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue 32 No 4 August 8httpjapanfocusorg-Kodama-Tatsuhiko3587

Koide H (2011) Why blackouts have occurredSekai (世界) 6 52-59

McCormack G (2001) The Emptiness ofJapanese Affluence East Gate Book MESharpe

McCormackG (2010) The Travails of a ClientState An Okinawan Angle on the 50thAnniversary of the US-Japan Security TreatyThe Asia-Pacific Journal 10-3-10 March 82010

Nathan J (2004) Japan Unbound A VolatileNationrsquos Quest for Pride and Purpose Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Osnos E (2011) The Fallout The New Yorker

87(32) 46-61

Okuizumi E (2000) Bibliography andchronological table explanatory notes on theUS-to-Japan censorship and speech policiesduring the occupation by the Allied Powersin Research in the History of PostwarEducation June 2000 no 14 (資料解題 年表 連合国占領期の米国対日検閲言論政策年誌抄(httpzassaku-pluscomdetailphpid=ialmj6D2Sr3NPxWQ-ED9mw)『戦後教育史研究』2000年6月巻号 14)

Robeyns I (2011) The Capability ApproachThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Summer 2011 Edition) Edward N Zalta (ed)R e t r i e v e d f r o mhttpplatostanfordeduarchivessum2011entriescapability-approach

Sen AK (1999) Democracy as a UniversalValue Journal of Democracy 10(3) 3-17

Sen A K (1999) Development as FreedomOxford Oxford University Press

Sen A K (2005) Development as CapabilityExpansion In S Fukuda-Parr amp A K S Kumar(Eds) Readings in Human DevelopmentConcepts Measures and Policies for aDevelopment Paradigm (2nd ed pp 3-16)Oxford University Press USA

Sen A K (2009) The Idea of Justice BelknapPress

Sen A K amp Dregraveze J (1999) The Amartya Senamp Jean Dregraveze Omnibus Poverty and FaminesHunger and Public Action India EconomicDevelopment and Social Opportunity NewYork Oxford University Press

S l a t e r D H (httpsapjjforg-David_H_-Slater3279) (2010)ldquoThe Making of Japans New Working ClassFreeters and the Progression From MiddleSchool to the Labor Marketrdquo The Asia-PacificJournal 1-1-10 January 4th 2010

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

15

Stiglitz J E Sen A K amp Fitoussi J-P(2009) The Measurement of EconomicPerformance and Social Progress Revisited -Reflections and Overview OFCE WorkingDocuments (p 79) Paris ObservatoireFranccedilais des Conjonctures Economiques( O F C E ) httpstiglitz-sen-fitoussifrenindexhtm

Tachibanaki T (2006) Kakusa shakai (Societyof Inequalities) (格差社会) Tokyo Iwanami

Yamada M (2007) Japanese Society withDeclining Birth Rates (少子社会日本) TokyoIwanami

Sachie Mizohata is an independent consultantbased in Luxembourg She is the co-founder ofsocial-issuesorg a collaborative onlinecommunity platform for social scientificresearch through which she promotes e-humanities and collective modeling of socialphenomena such as human well-being based onknowledge elicitation system used for OECDsurveys Recently she contributed fourchapters to Japanrsquos Shrinking Regions in the21st Century (Matanle and Rausch with theShrinking Regions Research Group Cambria2 0 1 1 ) L i n k(httpsocial- issuesorgcommunity)

Recommended citation Sachie MIZOHATAAmartya Sens Capabil ity ApproachDemocratic Governance and Japanrsquos FukushimaDisaster アマルティアセンのケイパビリティアプローチ民主政と福島の大惨事 TheAsia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue 46 No 2November 14 2011

Articles on related topics

See the guide to Japanrsquos 311 EarthquakeT s u n a m i a n d A t o m i c M e l t d o w n(httpsapjjforgJapans-311-Earthquake-Tsunami-Atomic-Meltdown)

Notes

1 This is from a speech given by Sir RichardJolly at a workshop entitled ldquoTwenty Years ofHuman Development The past and the futureof the Human Development Indexrdquo at theUniversity of Cambridge on January 28 2010

2 S e e t h e r e p o r t(httphdrstatsundporgencountriesprofilesJPNhtml) accessed November 8 2011

3 See Japanese dissatisfaction in OECDs YourB e t t e r L i f e I n d e x s u r v e y o f 2 0 1 1(ht tp wwwoecdbet ter l i fe index org ) compared to 33 other country members TheIndex notes that ldquoWhen asked 40 of peoplein Japan said they were satisfied with their lifebelow the OECD average of 59rdquo

4 S e e t h i s l i n k(httpwwwoecdorgdataoecd455741527303pdf) accessed September 26 2011

5 S e e t h i s l i n k(httpwwwsophiabankcojpaudiojapanese200810post_205) accessed November 3 2011

6 S e e E v a n O s n o s rsquo b l o g(httpwwwnewyorkercomonlineblogsevanosnos) (November 4 2011) accessed November6 2011

7 S e e t h i s l i n k(httpwwwsoumugojpmenu_newss-news01kiban08_01000023html) accessed October 142011

8 S e e N H K r e p o r t s(httpbiencuiteblogso-netnejp2011-09-28-1)on the court decision on the Onagawa case

APJ | JF 9 | 39 | 4

16

9 S e e t h i s l i n k(httpajwasahicomarticle0311disasterAJ2011100813755) accessed November 3 2011

10 This section draws heavily on informationprovided by Koide Hiroaki a nuclear expertand critic of nuclear power at Kyoto UniversityS e e t h i s l i n k(httphiroakikoidewordpresscom) accessedOctober 14 2011

1 1 S e e t h i s l i n k(httpcereaenpcfrfrfukushimahtml)accessed November 3 2011

12 See their blog (http wwwokatonorg) onOctober 31 2011 accessed November 8 2011

13 See this link (httpsayonara-nukesorg)accessed November 3 2011

1 4 S e e t h i s l i n k(http2011shinsaiinfonode947) accessedOctober 21 2011

1 5 S e e t h i s l i n k(httponna100ninseesaanetarticle228900129html) accessed October 21 2011

16 See this link (httpwanorjp) accessedNovember 3 2011

1 7 S e e w w w o k a t o n o r g(httpwwwokatonorg) accessed November 32011

1 8 S e e t h e p e t i t i o n(httpwwwavaazorgjpsave_the_fukushima_children_1) accessed November 14 201119 Mahbub ul Haq wrote in the first HumanDevelopment Report