Paper short abstract:

The abandonment of the Energy Choice Deliberative Polling results suggests that more systematic attention is required regarding interaction and co-production between mini-public-type public participation and stakeholders or grass-root politics.

Paper long abstract:

Public participation is a critical component in the implementation of responsible research and innovation, and this paper provides a case study of how and why the results of an epoch-making attempt at public participation, a series of participatory programs on energy choices after the Fukushima accident, were eventually abandoned in Japan. As reported in the authors' previous study in "Lessons From Fukushima," the year 2012 was a significant period for Japan's participatory governance of science and technology in that, in response to the disaster, the government undertook Deliberative Polling (DP) on energy options to officially introduce the voice of "the public" into energy policy for the first time. The results of the DP and associated participation programs had a significant impact on policy decisions, with the government at that time declaring a nuclear phase-out by the 2030s. A subsequent change in government at the end of the same year, however, led not only to the abandonment of the phase-out policy, but also to a complete disregard for the results of participatory programs, including the DP. A closer look at the process during and after the DP as well as related public engagement programs suggests that this mini-publics-type of participatory program tended to be quite naive in regarding "the public" as clean slate, thereby ignoring potential interactions and co-production with political stakeholders and grass-roots movements. It is suggested that a more systematic and integrated approach is needed in order for participatory and deliberative practices to contribute to responsible research and innovation.