Paper short abstract:

This presentation explores how regulatory authorities in Japan aim to re-establish trust in their food safety monitoring after selected food incidents since the BSE crisis in 2001 It is argued that the coupled term anzen-anshin is applied as both a political construct and an anxiety-reducing tool.

Paper long abstract:

The discovery of the first 'mad cow' case in Japan in 2001 deeply eroded public trust in the regulatory framework to ensure food safety. Safety-related crises such as the BSE incident are considered an inherent element to the food system and as endogenous episodic phenomena, they trigger immediate regulatory responses (Kjaernes, Harvey, Warde 2007). Indeed, far-reaching institutional changes followed, along with promotional and educational campaigns as the government set out to regain consumer confidence (MAFF 2001). Starting from the BSE crisis in 2001, this presentation explores in which way post-incident efforts have been conducted by the regulatory authorities in Japan, in order to re-establish trust in their food safety monitoring. The paper draws on a qualitative content analysis of representative governmental data on food-related incidents and their regulatory aftermath. The cases explored are the BSE crisis in 2001-2003 and the frozen gyoza contaminations of 2008.

As suggested by Yamaguchi (2014) and Sternsdorff-Cisterna (2015), the Japanese coupled term of anzen-anshin is applied as an analytical tool to analyse the role of science as opposed to affective values and other factors within the trust-building efforts. Accordingly, I argue that the anzen-anshin rhetoric is a useful political construct justifying institutional decisions on the one hand and an anxiety-reducing tool on the other, convincing the public of the safety of the food supply and the regulatory framework while leaving the actual risk open for interpretation.

Furthermore, referring to four dimensions of trust in regulatory authorities - (1) openness and honesty, (2) care and concern, (3) competence and (4) consensual values- , this paper tests whether trust-building efforts by the government after the selected food incidents are still mainly decided by the factors openness and competence, as suggested in a study by Maeda and Miyahara in 1998 (2003).