Focus On Fukushima: The Iaea's Response To Fukushima As a Focusing Event

What does it mean for the Fukushima disasters to be a “focusing event”? A focusing event provides a “little push” to bring a problem onto the policy agenda. It acquires its power by aggregating harms in a short timespan and large number (Kingdon 2003; Birkland 1997; Downs 1972). Some scholars use the term to describe the event itself, while others locate causal power in the symbol surrounding it. Focusing events are sudden, relatively rare, and bring aggregated harms to public view through the media, and yet not all such events lead to policy change. How the IAEA responded to Fukushima promises to shed light on why some focusing events lead to only very limited change. Birkland and others (Walgrave and Verhulst 2009) find that nuclear power is a domain where advocacy coalitions (roughly pro-industry versus pro-environment) are in competition and therefore policy change after a focusing event is not likely. Yet the IAEA had similarly divided advocacy coalitions in safeguards and security, and these policy areas still underwent dramatic policy change after a focusing event. My paper investigates to what degree policy change occurred in IAEA’s safety responsibilities in response to Fukushima. Preliminary research shows that some change did occur, especially relative the IAEA’s limited power compared to states. My paper will also examine how and why change occurred, paying attention to the advocacy coalitions in competition hypothesis, theories of framing, as well as to internal bureaucratic competition and the technological limits on what the IAEA can accomplish. The IAEA’s response to Fukushima may show that managers are able to shape the effects of some focusing events as much the literature suggests the media and policy entrepreneurs can do in other contexts.