Why are the citizens of Pusan so silent?

The shocking disasters caused by accidents in Hukushima nuclear power plant showed clearly the risky character of nuclear power. However, Pusan, the nearest foreign city to Japan has been surprisingly either insensitive or silent to lessons from the tragic accident, even though there are nuclear power plants just near to (less than 10 km from Haeundae, one of the city centers of) Pusan. Anti-nuclear movements in Pusan are as usual as ever. What’s the problem with Pusan? In fact, Koreans or Korean society were notorious for its relative insensitivity to safety issues. After the critiques on dysfunctions of the compressive modernization of Korea, however, there are growing concerns with social quality, safety issue in particular. This study aims to explain, in three ways, the reasons for inactivated attitudes of citizens in Pusan. First, the organized power of the so-called nuclear mafia composed of electric company, media and pro-nuclear scientists is invisible but very influential. Second, the individual preference for material comforts rather than critical consciousness on nuclear dangers among citizens has been undoubtedly pervasive. Third, there is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy made by both policy makers and ordinary people who are likely to judge that they would die of traffic accidents as usually as nuclear accidents. Interview data on experts and activists as well as survey data of small size will be collected to examine the proposed explanations.