Subtler configurations of intra-sector and inter-sector relationships
Within the sectors concerned, there arises a different kind of structure when examining the Toyocho case. Within the governmental sector here, the central government acts as a subsector, requesting local residents within the citizen sector to be tolerant of potential hazards while the local government of Toyocho as another subsector conflicts with the central government. Although there is no directly available observation of an academic subsector pertaining to the Toyocho case, except for the risk science subsector, potential subsectors could be geology, mineralogy, petrology, geophysics, geochemistry, and seismology. Within the citizen sector, there is a sharp conflict between subsectors supporting the central government’s policies for HLW disposal and other subsectors opposing.
Regarding intersectoral relationships in the Toyocho case, two relationships can be observed. First, the risk science subsector of the academic sector and the citizen subsector supporting government policies share a social model, such that the permeation of public understanding activities contributes to the smooth promotion of HLW disposal. Second, NUMO as a subsector of the governmental sector and the citizen subsector opposing government policies have sharply conflicting social models as to the effects of subsidies provided by the government. The social model of the former reveals that the large subsidies from the government enable the concerned parties in the citizen sector to accept a potential hazard, whereas that of the latter regards this as too dangerous to accept.
The overall configuration of Toyocho’s internal structure of respective sectors and the intersectoral relationships between the subsectors is expressed in Figure 7.1.
The sector model developed in Chapter 2 is important in understanding the overall configuration in Figure 7.1. Because the structure depicted by the sector
Figure 7.1 Configuration of Internal Structure within Sectors and the Intersectoral Relationships between Subsectors
Note: Double-headed arrows indicate conflicting relationships, and lines with double black circles indicate relationships that different agents share views. Solid lines indicate relationships within sectors, and dotted lines between sectors. Dotted circles indicate sectors and subsectors that are not problematized here.
model is a “snapshot” of a particular time, the configuration can change depending on the situation surrounding the sectors and actors therein. For example, NPOs and/or NGOs are usually understood in the citizen sector as being organized to fulfill the needs of inhabitants in the local areas; however, taking into account the mutually conflicting citizen subsectors that either support the central government’s policies for HLW disposal or oppose them, there is a possibility that NPOs and/or NGOs organized to invite HLW disposal sites to a local area are set up in collaboration with the central government promoting related policies. For example, the HLW committee of the Nuclear Power Section of Electric Utility Branch of Advisory Committee for Natural Resources and Energy of METI set forth the following “reinforcement measures” based on the failure of the Toyocho case:
To obtain understanding and cooperation in siting the final disposal stations, it is necessary to develop public understanding activities from the perspective of the people involved. Therefore the government and NUMO should promote grassroots public understanding activities in collaboration with NPOs and their networks in the citizen sector such as workshops in the local areas in question.
(METI 2007: 8)
When the reinforcement measures are successfully materialized, a new interrelationship will emerge between NUMO as the governmental subsector and an NPO promoting HLW disposal policies of the government through public understanding activities for the citizen subsector, as shown in Figure 7.2.
The configuration of agents involved in HLW disposal can thus change from the clear-cut conflict shown in Figure 7.1 to a “double-bind harmony,” as shown in Figure 7.2, where the governmental and citizen subsectors can collaborate with one another. When such a change happens, it is crucial to discern whether the collaboration of the governmental and citizen subsectors reflects the will of the people involved or simply pretends to represent this will behind a smokescreen of harmony toward a hidden yet intentional end. The nature of this problem is similar to discerning whether relevant outsiders or choreographed ones are seeking to escape from structural disaster as a lock-in state, as discussed in Chapter 6. What is questioned in both problems is the distinction between agents who play an endogenous role based on their own will and agents who play a role choreographed by other stakeholders. This distinction is particularly important in HLW disposal issues, in which infinite responsibility for future generations will evolve. For example, when there is a split of wills among the citizen subsectors, as shown in Figures 7.1 and 7.2, social decision-making can blur this distinction and hide the existence of such a split. When HLW disposal facilities are accepted by the citizen sector as a result of such social decision-making, the tolerance of acceptance is imposed on one of the subsectors without allocating due social responsibility for creating such a subsector, whose will is actually impaired by the decision. Therefore, social decision-making related to HLW disposal issues
Figure 7.2 Configuration of the New Relationships between Governmental and Citizen Subsectors
Note: Double-headed arrows indicate conflicting relationships, and lines with double black circles indicate relationships that different agents share views. Solid lines indicate relationships within sectors, and dotted lines between sectors. Dotted circles indicate sectors and subsectors that are not problematized here.
requires making public the split of opinion within the citizen subsectors and, based on that design, making social arrangements to transform infinite responsibility to finite responsibility.
Speaking theoretically, fixing type-two underdetermination by simply assuming that the governmental sector advocates for HLW disposal policies and the citizen sector is opposed to them, and that the two sectors always conflict, could detract from the reality of specific situations. This is because the distribution of opinion within and between respective sectors could dynamically change, as illustrated above, beyond the dichotomous scheme of the governmental versus citizen sector. This expectation of dynamic change in the future leads to a higher degree type-two underdetermination that should be fixed by additional assumptions for policy-making and implementation. In this context, the Cabinet Office of Japan has developed authorization procedures for NPOs, organized workshops for reinforcing the infrastructure of NPOs, and, more generally, supported citizen groups’ activities, mainly through subsidy measures. Thus, if something unsolv- able happens in fixing type-two underdetermination, it is important to recheck the way of thinking and assumptions introduced to fix it, and replace them with new ones rather than patching over individual problems and sustaining those old ways of thinking. The need for such a structural reform of the decision-making system, rather than “piecemeal engineering,” is one of the most important insights revealed by focusing on type-two underdetermination involved in HLW disposal.
