ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Plurality of Promoting Actors in the Installation of a Research Reactor: The Case of Rikkyo University’s Nuclear Research Institute in Yokosuka

• In Event: Landscapes of Development: Plural Visions and the Making of State-Building Infrastructures in East Asia

English Abstract

In Japan, the introduction of nuclear power has been characterized as a state-led project driven by political, bureaucratic, industrial, and academic elites. In contrast, far less attention has been paid to how peripheral actors came to desire and pursue nuclear technology. This study focuses on the research reactor built by Rikkyo University in Yokosuka City, shedding light on the ways in which nuclear technology was shaped primarily by peripheral actors, independently of the intentions of the central government.
In 1955, the Episcopal Diocese of Washington proposed donating research reactors to impoverished hospitals and universities in the Far East as a means of contributing to world peace. Rikkyo University, which had a close relationship with the Anglican Episcopal Church in Japan, responded to this proposal. The university housed several specialists in nuclear physics and therefore had strong motivation to promote nuclear research. Around the same time, citizens’ movements opposing the construction of reactors in urban or mountainous areas emerged in Tokyo and Kyoto. In response to these events, the national nuclear policy was modified.
Yokosuka City, where the Rikkyo University reactor was ultimately built, had prospered as a naval port since the Meiji period. After the Korean War armistice, the withdrawal of U.S. forces led to significant unemployment problems in the city. Under the Former Naval City Conversion Act of 1950, Yokosuka sought to shift from a military port city to a peace-oriented industrial city, promoting new industries as part of its strategy to solve labor problems. As part of this effort, in 1956 local organizations—including the Chamber of Commerce and women’s associations—participated in campaigns to attract a nuclear research institute. In this way, nuclear technology in Japan was shaped not only by central authorities but also by plural actors at the local level.

Author

• Masahiro Inohana, SOKENDAI