Hiro Saito

The Realpolitik of Nuclear Risk: When Political Expediency Trumps Technical Democracy

In recent years, a growing number of researchers in science and technology studies have begun to examine the relationship between science and politics. Specifically, they focus on citizen participation in highly technical policy problems and explore the possibility of a technical democracy that avoids pitfalls of technocracy. This focus, however, downplays a possibly more serious obstacle to technical democracy than technocracy, namely, realpolitik. Based on ethnographic and textual data on citizen–government interactions in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster, we first show how citizens mobilised radiation detectors and counter-experts to force the Japanese government to admit scientific uncertainty about the permissible dose limit. We then explain why this successful mobilisation nonetheless had only a small impact on evacuation and compensation policies in terms of the pre-disaster structure of Japanese politics: the dominance of commission-based policy-making allowed the bureaucratic government to play realpolitik in the face of scientific uncertainty to expediently pursue its own interest, circumventing both democratic deliberation and technical rigour.

The Cultural Pragmatics of Political Apology

In recent decades, research on ‘political apology’, wherein the state apologizes to victims of its past wrongs, has multiplied, as redress movements based on human rights have proliferated around the world. Since most of this research has been conducted by political philosophers, however, analyses of political apologies tend to adopt formal and normative perspectives. To propose an alternative, empirically-grounded approach, in this paper, I develop the ‘cultural pragmatics’ of political apology. To this end, I first conceptualize political apology as a social performance aimed to ‘re-fuse’ an impaired relationship between the perpetrator state and the victim individual. This conceptual move enables systematic analysis of political apology in terms of six elements constitutive of social performance: collective representations, actors, audience, means of symbolic production, mise-en-scène, and power. To elaborate this model of the cultural pragmatics of political apology, I then examine the protracted dispute over wartime atrocities that Japan committed against South Korea.

A review of knowledge LTD: Towards a social logic of the derivative

They find that higher-wage employees are more likely to gain such benefits and to use them, while low-wage workers are less likely to have them available or know about them and are less likely to use them, because the program does not pay enough or provide job protection. As a whole, this is a very valuable collection of ideas and assessments of programs and policies that could improve the situation of the large number of low-wage workers. The papers make clear how much organization, energy, and sustained effort are required to pass workable policies, especially when strong political forces are determined to roll back the job protections of the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement and to keep workers dependent and vulnerable. Efforts are required at multiple levels, through local organizing, with the assistance of intermediate organizations like labor unions or community groups working in new ways, through enforcement of existing laws and reconsideration of others, and through experimentation and creative ideas. Because the forces that have created growing inequality are global, a rights framework is not sufficient and public policy initiatives are not likely to be successful without social movements that mobilize both low-wage workers themselves and others concerned about inequality. The policies of the past have eroded, so a new social safety net that is non-discriminatory, more inclusive, and attentive to implementation as well as design will have to be created anew.

Knowledge LTD: Toward a Social Logic of the Derivative

They find that higher-wage employees are more likely to gain such benefits and to use them, while low-wage workers are less likely to have them available or know about them and are less likely to use them, because the program does not pay enough or provide job protection. As a whole, this is a very valuable collection of ideas and assessments of programs and policies that could improve the situation of the large number of low-wage workers. The papers make clear how much organization, energy, and sustained effort are required to pass workable policies, especially when strong political forces are determined to roll back the job protections of the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement and to keep workers dependent and vulnerable. Efforts are required at multiple levels, through local organizing, with the assistance of intermediate organizations like labor unions or community groups working in new ways, through enforcement of existing laws and reconsideration of others, and through experimentation and creative ideas. Because the forces that have created growing inequality are global, a rights framework is not sufficient and public policy initiatives are not likely to be successful without social movements that mobilize both low-wage workers themselves and others concerned about inequality. The policies of the past have eroded, so a new social safety net that is non-discriminatory, more inclusive, and attentive to implementation as well as design will have to be created anew.

Knowledge LTD: Toward a Social Logic of the DerivativeKnowledge LTD: Toward a Social Logic of the Derivative, by MartinRandy. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2015. 264 pp.

They find that higher-wage employees are more likely to gain such benefits and to use them, while low-wage workers are less likely to have them available or know about them and are less likely to use them, because the program does not pay enough or provide job protection. As a whole, this is a very valuable collection of ideas and assessments of programs and policies that could improve the situation of the large number of low-wage workers. The papers make clear how much organization, energy, and sustained effort are required to pass workable policies, especially when strong political forces are determined to roll back the job protections of the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement and to keep workers dependent and vulnerable. Efforts are required at multiple levels, through local organizing, with the assistance of intermediate organizations like labor unions or community groups working in new ways, through enforcement of existing laws and reconsideration of others, and through experimentation and creative ideas. Because the forces that have created growing inequality are global, a rights framework is not sufficient and public policy initiatives are not likely to be successful without social movements that mobilize both low-wage workers themselves and others concerned about inequality. The policies of the past have eroded, so a new social safety net that is non-discriminatory, more inclusive, and attentive to implementation as well as design will have to be created anew.

29.95 paper. ISBN: 9781439912249.

This paper critically revisits the A-bomb victims’ plea for cosmopolitan commemoration that takes humanity, rather than nationality, as a primary frame of reference. To this end, I first elaborate the nature of cosmopolitan commemoration espoused by A-bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in comparison with another form of cosmopolitan commemoration pertaining to the Holocaust victims. I then analyze limitations in these cosmopolitan commemorations and explore how they can be transcended. In light of my critical analysis, I argue that genuinely cosmopolitan commemoration, a prerequisite for reconciliation and world peace, will appear on the horizon if the commemorations of the two events are synthesized with the help of ‘historians’ debate’ that continuously subjects the logic of nationalism to critical reflections. This synthesis has the potential to help people envision cosmopolitan politics – cosmopolitics – where they can engage in peaceful but agonistic struggles, not as enemies but as fellow humans, in collectively governing their lives in today’s war-torn world.

The A-bomb victims’ plea for cosmopolitan commemoration Toward reconciliation and world peace

Why did Contemporary Sociology, an official journal of the American Sociological Association, ask me to review these two books on Japan edited and written by anthropologists? This question sounds trivial and even irrelevant at first. However, when the question’s three overlapping registers— why Japan, why anthropology, and why me (a Japanese sociologist trained in the United States)—are recognized, they should prompt readers of Contemporary Sociology to reexamine the relationship between disciplines and area studies, on the one hand, and the relationship between sociologists and publics, on the other. In fact, I suggest that this reexamination be an urgent task in an increasingly global world, where linguistic and institutional barriers that safely separated the observing-self from the observedother are breaking down, as many anthropologists have already pointed out. The first register (‘‘Why Japan?’’) appears to be relatively straightforward. Both books present Japan still reeling from the triple disaster of March 2011—the earthquake, tsunami, and the nuclear accident—whose consequences reverberated far beyond the island country. Contemporary Japan therefore offers fertile ground for examining how people, organizations, and institutions cope with profound structural disruptions and ruptures caused by large-scale disasters. The nuclear accident, in particular, raised critical questions, both empirically and normatively, about the roles of science and technology in society and the relationship between experts and citizens in policymaking. Put another way, the case studies of contemporary Japan have the potential to help sociologists advance a theory of structural transformations, disaster research, and the sociology of science and technology, among others. In this sense, these two books on contemporary Japan should deserve attention even from those who do not study the country. This straightforward explanation, however, is incompatible with the second register (‘‘Why anthropology?’’) because neither of the two books advances theory. Chapters in Japan Copes with Calamity, for example, collectively offer what one of its editors David Slater calls an ‘‘urgent ethnography’’ by painstakingly documenting everyday lives of disaster victims and empathically conveying the urgency of their struggles. As a result, engagement with existing theories in the social sciences, which is not ‘‘urgent’’ for people in Japan, falls outside the scope of the book. In contrast, Precarious Japan by Anne Allison does engage with theories of neoliberal globalization, flexible citizenship, precarity, and so on. However, her book merely uses contemporary Japan as a case to illustrate how these theories work and therefore falls short of pushing the frontiers of theoretical thinking. Thus, the two books, edited and written by anthropologists, do not meet the expectations that sociologists typically hold for case studies, as reflected in the aforesaid explanation of the first register: case studies are understood as most productive when they use rich empirical details to propose a new theory. Then, why did Contemporary Sociology choose to review the two anthropological books that make no theoretical contribution? This is indeed puzzling because the majority Japan Copes with Calamity: Ethnographies of the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disasters of March 2011, edited by Tom Gill, Brigitte Steger, and David H. Slater. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2013. 316pp.

Disciplines, Area Studies, and Publics: Rethinking Sociology in a Global World

64.95 paper. ISBN: 97830343 09226.

Disciplines, Area Studies, and Publics

Why did Contemporary Sociology, an official journal of the American Sociological Association, ask me to review these two books on Japan edited and written by anthropologists? This question sounds trivial and even irrelevant at first. However, when the question’s three overlapping registers— why Japan, why anthropology, and why me (a Japanese sociologist trained in the United States)—are recognized, they should prompt readers of Contemporary Sociology to reexamine the relationship between disciplines and area studies, on the one hand, and the relationship between sociologists and publics, on the other. In fact, I suggest that this reexamination be an urgent task in an increasingly global world, where linguistic and institutional barriers that safely separated the observing-self from the observedother are breaking down, as many anthropologists have already pointed out. The first register (‘‘Why Japan?’’) appears to be relatively straightforward. Both books present Japan still reeling from the triple disaster of March 2011—the earthquake, tsunami, and the nuclear accident—whose consequences reverberated far beyond the island country. Contemporary Japan therefore offers fertile ground for examining how people, organizations, and institutions cope with profound structural disruptions and ruptures caused by large-scale disasters. The nuclear accident, in particular, raised critical questions, both empirically and normatively, about the roles of science and technology in society and the relationship between experts and citizens in policymaking. Put another way, the case studies of contemporary Japan have the potential to help sociologists advance a theory of structural transformations, disaster research, and the sociology of science and technology, among others. In this sense, these two books on contemporary Japan should deserve attention even from those who do not study the country. This straightforward explanation, however, is incompatible with the second register (‘‘Why anthropology?’’) because neither of the two books advances theory. Chapters in Japan Copes with Calamity, for example, collectively offer what one of its editors David Slater calls an ‘‘urgent ethnography’’ by painstakingly documenting everyday lives of disaster victims and empathically conveying the urgency of their struggles. As a result, engagement with existing theories in the social sciences, which is not ‘‘urgent’’ for people in Japan, falls outside the scope of the book. In contrast, Precarious Japan by Anne Allison does engage with theories of neoliberal globalization, flexible citizenship, precarity, and so on. However, her book merely uses contemporary Japan as a case to illustrate how these theories work and therefore falls short of pushing the frontiers of theoretical thinking. Thus, the two books, edited and written by anthropologists, do not meet the expectations that sociologists typically hold for case studies, as reflected in the aforesaid explanation of the first register: case studies are understood as most productive when they use rich empirical details to propose a new theory. Then, why did Contemporary Sociology choose to review the two anthropological books that make no theoretical contribution? This is indeed puzzling because the majority Japan Copes with Calamity: Ethnographies of the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disasters of March 2011, edited by Tom Gill, Brigitte Steger, and David H. Slater. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2013. 316pp.

European Cosmopolitanism in Question

64.95 paper. ISBN: 97830343 09226.