Site Fights: Divisive Facilities and Civil Society in Japan and the West
One of the most vexing problems for governments is building controversial facilities that serve the needs of all citizens but have adverse consequences for host communities. Policymakers must decide not only where to locate often unwanted projects but also what methods to use when interacting with opposition groups. In Site Fights, Daniel P. Aldrich gathers quantitative evidence from close to five hundred municipalities across Japan to show that planners deliberately seek out acquiescent and...
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One of the most vexing problems for governments is building controversial facilities that serve the needs of all citizens but have adverse consequences for host communities. Policymakers must decide not only where to locate often unwanted projects but also what methods to use when interacting with opposition groups. In Site Fights, Daniel P. Aldrich gathers quantitative evidence from close to five hundred municipalities across Japan to show that planners deliberately seek out acquiescent and unorganized communities for such facilities in order to minimize conflict. When protests arise over nuclear power plants, dams, and airports, agencies regularly rely on the coercive powers of the modern state, such as land expropriation and police repression. Only under pressure from civil society do policymakers move toward financial incentives and public relations campaigns. Through fieldwork and interviews with bureaucrats and activists, Aldrich illustrates these dynamics with case studies from Japan, France, and the United States. The incidents highlighted in Site Fights stress the importance of developing engaged civil society even in the absence of crisis, thereby making communities both less attractive to planners of controversial projects and more effective at resisting future threats.
\ From the Publisher"The unique contribution of this book lies in its nature as an exercise in comparative public policy. The case studies, which include Japan and France, are very well done and provide empirical evidence for the universal nature of the human reaction to siting dilemmas. They suggest that the strategic interaction between democratic state policy processes and the organizational structure of the civic society involved-including its conventions, values, and legal background-can indeed predict the success or failure of facility siting."-Political Science Quarterly\ "Site Fights is an impressive book that pushes the reader to reconsider the role of civil society in state policymaking. It is of great interest to scholars in comparative politics and civil society research, activists, and policymakers alike."-Japanese Journal of Political Science\ "Daniel P. Aldrich has written an important book that analyzes the ways in which national bureaucracies interact with anti-project social movements. He explains with impressive empirical evidence why in highly charged policy areas governments sometimes use coercion, whereas in other cases they adopt softer policy instruments."-Ezra Suleiman, IBM Professor and Chair, Department of Politics and Director, Program in Contemporary European Politics and Society, Princeton University\ "In Site Fights, Daniel P. Aldrich looks at frictions between state bureaucracies and elements of civil society and posits a model for their interactions and mutual influences over time. He argues that states worry primarily about the strength of civil society in the areas they target for their projects. Therefore, civil societies play a crucial role in the development of a country and its democracy."-Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, University of Utah\ "Site Fights is a very rich account of facility siting, an issue that takes on added significance in the case of Japan, where population density is high and land is scarce. The study of Japanese society will benefit from what it says about decision making and the influence of and constraints on the power of civil society in Japan."-Miranda Schreurs, Director of the Environmental Policy Research Centre and Prof. of Comparative Politics at the Free University of Berlin\ "Daniel P. Aldrich has produced a fascinating book that investigates how states approach the siting of public nasties comparatively. Integrating the social capital and facility siting literatures, it qualifies the dominant paradigm that states seek to develop controversial projects through open, noncoercive, and participatory strategies. Site Fights will generate a lively scholarly and policy debate about the relationship between the state and civil society in the management of contentious siting politics."-Hayden Lesbirel, James Cook University, author of NIMBY Politics in Japan\ "Daniel P. Aldrich provides a fresh look at a familiar and enduring arena of political stalemate. His comparative approach cuts across multiple siting venues and offers important insights that can serve to guide contentious land use decisions."-Barry G. Rabe, Gerald Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan\ \ \
