Why Is It so Difficult to Learn
from Accidents?
Kohta Juraku
Abstract After the Fukushima nuclear accident, the whole Japanese society swiftly
achieved a consensus to have comprehensive accident investigations to identify the
root cause of the disaster. The Government and other major actors established
several accident investigation commissions to meet this public will. However, the
author has to say the lessons have not been learned and absorbed well so far,
with deep regret. Because the issues centering on responsibility and social justice
have not been dealt with well, the outputs of the investigations transformed into
alternative sanction on nuclear industry and poorly articulated regulatory reformation, for example. This trajectory has been considered as a result of the particular and
common culture of East Asian societies, but the author would argue that it should
become more and more important global problem in the future world with
high-reliability and complicated technological systems and their failures. The integration of the concept of risk governance to build prescribed consensus of responsibility distribution is strongly suggested as a key idea of remedy to this problem.
Keywords Accident investigation Á Responsibility Á Social justice Á Risk
governance
1 Introduction
Why is it so difficult to learn from accidents? This is the given question of this
chapter. In fact, it seems that the learning process from the Fukushima nuclear
accident has not been satisfying so far, while the major investigation reports
attracted very strong public attention both domestically and internationally when
they were published. For example, the deficits in risk governance of Japanese
nuclear program has not been getting better, but has even become worse in some
aspects [1]. Difficulty in post-accident (or “disaster”) social learning process often
K. Juraku (&)
Tokyo Denki University, Tokyo, Japan
e-mail: juraku@mail.dendai.ac.jp
© The Author(s) 2017
J. Ahn et al. (eds.), Resilience: A New Paradigm of Nuclear Safety,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58768-4_12
157
from Accidents?
Kohta Juraku
Abstract After the Fukushima nuclear accident, the whole Japanese society swiftly
achieved a consensus to have comprehensive accident investigations to identify the
root cause of the disaster. The Government and other major actors established
several accident investigation commissions to meet this public will. However, the
author has to say the lessons have not been learned and absorbed well so far,
with deep regret. Because the issues centering on responsibility and social justice
have not been dealt with well, the outputs of the investigations transformed into
alternative sanction on nuclear industry and poorly articulated regulatory reformation, for example. This trajectory has been considered as a result of the particular and
common culture of East Asian societies, but the author would argue that it should
become more and more important global problem in the future world with
high-reliability and complicated technological systems and their failures. The integration of the concept of risk governance to build prescribed consensus of responsibility distribution is strongly suggested as a key idea of remedy to this problem.
Keywords Accident investigation Á Responsibility Á Social justice Á Risk
governance
1 Introduction
Why is it so difficult to learn from accidents? This is the given question of this
chapter. In fact, it seems that the learning process from the Fukushima nuclear
accident has not been satisfying so far, while the major investigation reports
attracted very strong public attention both domestically and internationally when
they were published. For example, the deficits in risk governance of Japanese
nuclear program has not been getting better, but has even become worse in some
aspects [1]. Difficulty in post-accident (or “disaster”) social learning process often
K. Juraku (&)
Tokyo Denki University, Tokyo, Japan
e-mail: juraku@mail.dendai.ac.jp
© The Author(s) 2017
J. Ahn et al. (eds.), Resilience: A New Paradigm of Nuclear Safety,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58768-4_12
157