Left-libertarian values and post-Fukushima social movements: Analyzing newcomers to protests in Japan

ABSTRACT The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011 (3/11) resulted in a significant upsurge of protests in Japan. Previous studies have reported the importance of newcomers (i.e. citizens who first began to participate in protests after 3/11) in such protests. However, a comprehensive picture of these newcomers remains unknown due to the absence of large-scale quantitative datasets. Based on the results of an online survey of approximately 80,000 citizens in the Greater Tokyo area conducted in the winter of 2017, this paper analyzes newcomers and factors that influence their participation in post-3/11 protests. Newcomers account for 40% of protesters and are characterized by their left-libertarian values such as direct democracy, cultural liberalism, antiauthoritarianism, and environmentalism. The newcomers had experience in low-cost social movements and were triggered to be a protester through the perceived social crises caused by 3/11 to which their libertarian values made them sensitive. Some newcomers cultivated a collective identity and friendship through their participation in protests, particularly those who protested in front of the prime minister’s office. By comparing these data with those of pre-3/11 studies, it can be concluded that the “new protest cycle” after 3/11 can be seen as the second wave of the large-scale new social movement in Japanese civil society.