In March 2011, AMU Prof. Beata Bochorodycz was on a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka when Japan was affected by an earthquake and a tsunami. The disaster failed the Fukushima 1 power plant. This event prompted the Poznan-based political scientist to research the Japanese anti-nuclear movement. The outcome is a book which, after its success in the West, was also published in Japan and reverberated there.
The demonstrations in the Land of the Cherry Blossom reached a scale they had not experienced for six decades and lasted for several years. For Prof. Bochorodycz's project, the starting point was Japan's energy policy itself and who is trying to influence it and how. The scientist published the results of several years of work in the book “Fukushima and Civil Society: the Japanese Denuclearisation Movement in a Political-Sociological Perspective," published by the AMU Scientific Publishing House in 2018. Ms Professor translated the position into English and published it in the West, receiving considerable attention there. It led to the monograph being published in Japan in 2024, giving it a second life.
In Japan, a political scientist conducted research in the area for a year. Among other things, she focused on observing and analysing groups involved in the weekly demonstrations held in front of the Prime Minister's residence in the capital. She spoke to individuals directly affected by the disaster, as well as representatives of businesses and a variety of organisations, bringing together a wide range of people with widely differing opinions, from left-wing to conservative. This compelled the Japanese researcher to reach out for a civil society perspective.
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