Our Stolen Safety: Systems Pathology following the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and the JR Accident

Abstract

This Article examines accidents and disasters in the modern era, clarifies the mechanisms involved using real-life examples from Japan, and asks how we can check the underlying pathology and threat of systemic breakdown. In recent years, disasters which have caused enormous misery have occurred across the globe at a frequent rate, while manmade organizational accidents have also followed an inexorable trend toward increase in scale, presenting an urgent issue in all nations for individuals, organizations, regions, and the state. The objective of this research is to explore potential management approaches (parasympathetic systems) and policies to limit the globally expanding problem of manmade disasters, drawing retrospectively on real-life examples from the Japan of recent years. This paper comprises two case studies, namely of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe of 2011 as an example of organizational disaster and the Japan Railway West Accident of 2005 as an organizational accident. Those phenomena can be said to have stolen our safety. It is necessary to consider the robustness of sustainability against manmade disasters and organizational accidents in the near future.