Introduction

The introductory chapter consists of three parts. It first briefly discusses the context, rationale, and goals of the book. It clarifies a communicative approach the book has adopted to examine Japan’s nuclear power, which adds different insights to the understanding of the topic that largely has been analyzed from sociological and political science perspectives. Secondly, the chapter explains a discourse analysis framework the book employs to examine social production of nuclear power and introduces ideas central to the lens, including discourse, articulation, hegemony, antagonism, discursive closure, soft control, and hierarchical dualism. Finally, the chapter concludes with an overview of each chapter and the relationship between them.