Cognition on Current and Future Society in Post Disaster Japan: Attitude on Inequality and Nuclear Problem

• In Event: 1552 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 11: Inequalities in Japan

Abstract

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake brought enormous damage across much of Eastern Japan. The post-disaster restoration and nuclear plant reactivation remain major political issues in Japan, and there are many opinion on future policy direction. However, the association between policy preferences, cognition on future society, and social stratification is not clear. We found associations between social stratification, cognition on current and future society, and government evaluation. A new finding is that cognition on future society is determinant of government evaluation. And the cognition is effected by self defined social stratification and relational resource, age, education, attitude on radioactivity health problems, and evacuation dummy variables. Another important new finding is the absence of direct effects to the evaluation and the cognitions from age, education, and evacuation dummy variable. It may be that social status and relational resource are more important to the cognition on society and the evaluation of government in Japan. We discuss possible causal mechanisms in the results.

Authors

• Yoichi Murase, Rikkyo University

• W. Lawrence Neuman, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater