Abstract

After the Fukushima accident, Japan experienced a drastic decline in nuclear energy use because of resistance from civil society. This civil society activity can be explained by the strong social capital forged in Japanese communities. By contrast, the classical (and some recent) literature has argued that Japan’s dense network of associations and groups functions to disseminate conservative ideology and thus control civil society. The classical school of thought has described networks of conservative organizations as vertical in contrast to horizontal networks. This article explores the empirical evidence in this discussion by analyzing the effect of affiliation of each type of group on the members’ attitude and advocacy toward nuclear energy policy based on our survey (n = 77,084) conducted in late 2017. Detailed analysis of group effects of relevant group features led us to reconceptualize the aforementioned dichotomy. Vertical networks are often associated with groups’ conservatism but vary in the degree of postmaterialism and activism. Each dimension of group features has different effects on members’ opinions of nuclear energy, sentiment toward antinuclear movements, and antinuclear advocacy. Neither social capital theory nor vertical network theory is fully confirmed by this study. Both effects can be observed in different segments of respondents.

中文翻译：

---

重新审视纵向和横向网络：探讨它们对态度和倡导核能的影响

摘要

福岛事故后，由于民间社会的抵制，日本的核能使用量急剧下降。这种民间社会活动可以用日本社区中形成的强大社会资本来解释。相比之下，古典（和一些最近的）文献认为，日本密集的协会和团体网络的作用是传播保守的意识形态，从而控制公民社会。思想的古典学派描述了保守组织的网络，纵向对比横向网络。本文通过分析每种类型的团体的隶属关系对成员对核能政策的态度和主张的影响，探索了本次讨论中的经验证据（n = 77,084）在2017年末进行。对相关群体特征的群体影响的详细分析使我们重新概念化了上述二分法。纵向网络通常与群体的保守主义有关，但是后唯物主义和行动主义的程度各不相同。团体特征的每个维度对成员的核能观点，反核运动的情绪和反核倡导都有不同的影响。这项研究都没有完全证实社会资本理论和垂直网络理论。可以在受访者的不同部分中观察到这两种效果。