Building Accountable Local Level Nuclear Governance -the Case of Nuclear Safety Monitoring Council in New Taipei City

Since Fukushima accident in 2011, Taiwan’s nuclear safety system has been paid great amounts of attention. Particularly local government of the New Taipei City, in which three nuclear plants and possible future interim nuclear waste repository sites are located, has showed its interests in monitoring those facilities. However, in Taiwan’s nuclear governance system, local government has long been deprived from the rights of participation and monitoring. In order to effectively be a part of the governance, the New Taipei City, for the first time in the history of Taiwan’s local governance, has established its own monitoring council to review safety issues of those facilities.

This article, by adopting content analysis and in-depth interviews, aims to examine the effectiveness of this council from the perspective of “accountability” on Tai-Power. With the parameters of “transparency”, “justification through deliberation”, and “capacity to sanction”, this paper concluded that: despite this council encountered legal constraints in the beginning phase, through collaborating with anti-nuclear civil organizations, the local government was able to integrate the creativity and momentum from the civil sector. In three parameter of accountability, the council managed to evolve through learning, to deepen discussion, and to exercise its administrative leverage. By grabbing predominant position in the agenda setting process, eventually the New Taipei Government gained substantial power to veto and monitor local facilities. From this case, the local governments were expected to play more important roles in Taiwan’s nuclear safety governance.