Sayōnara Nukes - Development, Mobilisation Strategies and Organisation of Anti-Nuclear Protest in Japan after the 2011 Fukushima Accident

Abstract: Broad public contention against nuclear energy can be observed as a new phenomenon in Japanese society after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. This study aimed to detect an ample explanation about why the emergence of such a protest movement did only occur after the direct experience of a critical event and did not happen before. Discrediting a sole and simple grievance-based argumentation, the analysis took into account underlying environmental and structural factors with a potential impact on protest development. A strategy of scrutinising in-field observations and findings in appliance of classical approaches of social movement theory provided the best possible outcome. As a primal finding, the recent emergence of protest could be mainly attributed to the opening up of novel political opportunities, newly accessed parts of society as additional mobilisable resources, but most of all to an effective application of framing strategies. Nevertheless, explanatory factors were also found outside of the covered range of the theoretical framework, such as the apparent characterisation of the protests as a New Social Movement. Although this opened up a discussion about the underlying model's adequacy, its suitability was generally proved by its rich repertoire of explication in this particular case.