Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Few public decisions stir more controversy than siting nuclear power plants and other “local public bads.” How democratic governments overcome citizen opposition reveals the flexibility demonstrated by states under pressure along with the evolutionary nature of democracy in industrialized nations. Employing a historical-institutional approach to facility siting in Japan, this paper finds that bureaucracies with clearly defined goals facing sustained public opposition are more likely to engage in adaptive, flexible responses. Under these conditions, agencies depart from the use of “core” tools such as policing and coercion which have more guaranteed outcomes but short term impacts and move toward “peripheral” ones which seek to alter citizen preferences about these facilities. States innovate in confrontation with social movements and do not require large crises or shocks to initiate radical policy change. Furthermore, states are not swayed by public opinion to the degree imagined by democratic theorists, but often play a significant role in shaping it.