Consequences of Severe Nuclear Accidents on Social Regulations in Socio-Technical Organizations

Abstract : Major nuclear accidents have generated an abundant literature in the social sciences. They are the source of many key concepts that have led to studies of the organization and its links to system safety. Social psychology and sociology have shown that such bodies have their own modes of organization; while resilience engineering has hypothesized that they have the capacity to learn from the past and anticipate potential causes of serious damage. This paper revisits some major contemporary accidents, notably the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, through an analysis of the resilience capacity of systems in terms of the sociology of organizations and especially, social regulation.