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3.11: Comparative and Historical Lessons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Richard J. Samuels
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Like all catastrophes, 3.11 generated pain and imagination, heroes and villains. Political entrepreneurs with motivation and resources were quick to do battle for control of the event. They spun narrative explanations for the tragedy across a broad horizon of meanings and values, all conforming to their own preexisting preferences and to what they believed would be effective with the Japanese public. Existing enemies were enemies still, but newly villainous. The stakeholders, thus rearmed, used these narratives aggressively in an effort to shift the still unformed preferences of a general public struggling to make sense of otherwise unfathomable events. But 3.11 is not alone in this respect. This chapter locates the dueling narratives of 3.11 in their historical and comparative contexts to derive guidance for understanding how disasters can be used by politicians and their allies as well as by citizens.

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Research Article
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Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 20 , May 2013, e2
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2013

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