Human Insecurity Caused by the Dysfunction of the State: New Security Issues in Post-Fukushima Japan

Abstract

Controversial and insufficient post-accident measures implemented by the Japanese government after the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in 2011 have caused prolonged anxieties over radiation. These anxieties resulted in multiple insecurities, including health, economic, food, environmental, community, personal, and political insecurities. The Fukushima disaster shows that threats to human security may come not only from the manifest enemy outside, but from dysfunction of the state supported by peoples' choices to sacrifice the victims for the sake of the interests of the majority, which is called a sacrificial system. At the same time, people are still patiently trying to restore their human security by means of voluntary actions.