External Shocks and Governmental Responsiveness to Public Opinion. A Case Study of Nuclear Energy Policy After the Fukushima Disaster

To what extent are democratic governments responsive to citizens’ demands and preferences between elections? Are governments more likely to be responsive to the expression of public opinion through surveys or to collective and publicly voiced opinion –in the form of protests? This paper proposes a new way of analysing the dynamics by which governments become more or less responsive to different expressions of public opinion (as expressed in opinion polls and through collective action) between elections. Several scholars have pointed out that, in the presence of electoral mandates, between-elections responsiveness might be detrimental to the process of democratic representation. However, what happens when no mandate on specific issues or policy-making junctures can be claimed, or when unexpected external shocks occur? In these occasions, responsible governments have a choice between following their own policy preferences or following public opinion. Furthermore, when the policy issues become publicly contested at these unexpected junctures, governments must choose which side to take or how to balance contending views. In this paper we look at this kind of unexpected decision-making junctures using the case study of the nuclear energy policy after the Fukushima disaster. Public opinion polls showed an increase in acceptance of nuclear power before the accident in Fukushima. After this incident several European governments decided to rethink their agenda towards nuclear power, whereas in others no policy changes took place. Were the political changes concerning nuclear power across Europe due to citizens’ protests? The paper first outlines the theoretical expectations about when we should expect governments to act responsively in relation to the opinions of the public in unexpected junctures. The paper then analyses empirically the relation between different expressions of the public opinion (protest events and surveys) and governmental policy reactions in 20 western democracies using event data analysis.