Analysis of public attitudes towards “local agreements” on restarting nuclear power plants: a questionnaire survey in four prefectures in Japan

ABSTRACT This study explored public attitudes towards the “local agreement” process as it relates to the restart of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Japan. Conflicts have arisen over not only whether NPPs should be restarted, but also how and by whom the local agreements on their restart should be made. Using exploratory factor analysis on the data from an online monitor questionnaire survey conducted in four prefectures with NPPs in Japan, this study identified three latent factors behind public attitudes: “the conventional decision makers,” “those negatively affected,” and “those benefitting from the restart.” A multi-regression analysis of factor scores showed that opinions on restarting NPPs, prefectural referendums, and the geographical range of local agreements were related to attitudes towards local agreements. There were also differences in attitudes towards local agreements according to prefectures, gender, and age, while where respondents live in relation to the nearby NPP had little influence. To design a more socially acceptable local agreement process, it is necessary to reconcile such differences. By providing a better understanding of the local politics regarding restarting NPPs in Japan, this study paved the way for resolving conflicts over local agreements.


Introduction
This study explored public attitudes towards the "local agreement" process as it relates to the restart of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Japan. The resumption of NPPs has been a controversial issue in Japan's environmental and energy politics since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. In Japan, ten power companies transmit and distribute electricity to their respective areas, nine of which, with the exception of Okinawa Electric Power Company, operate nuclear power plants 1 ; as of February 2011, there were 54 nuclear power plants in 17 locations across Japan, excluding reactors that had been announced for decommissioning. Nuclear power accounted for about 30.2% of Japan's electricity generation in 2009. 2 Following the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, all nuclear reactors in Japan ceased operation. The Democratic Party of Japan government at the time adopted a policy of phasing out nuclear power, but the Liberal Democratic Party government, which returned to power at the end of 2012, positioned nuclear power as an important baseload power source. The Nuclear Regulation Authority has established the New Regulatory Requirements, and some of the reactors have since passed the examination and have resumed operation. As of January 4, 2022, ten reactors have been restarted, seven facilities have been given permission to amend their reactor instalment license, ten are still under examination, and twenty-four reactors are in the process of being decommissioned. 3 A local agreement, which concerns the process through which a political decision is made at the subnational level, is a critical part of the resumption process (T. Nakazawa and Tatsumi 2022). In Japan, NPPs are owned and operated by private power companies, and while the national government centrally regulates and supervises the country's nuclear power, local governments have no legal authority regarding the restart of NPPs. However, the resumption of operations requires a local agreement from the prefectural government and host municipality, generally based on the safety agreement made between the local governments and the power company.
On the other hand, the conventional framework of local agreements, in which only the host municipality and prefectural governments are given a direct voice, has been challenged with the restart of NPPs (Aldrich and Fraser 2017;Kikuchi 2020). The Fukushima nuclear disaster clearly showed that not only the municipality in which an NPP is located, but also the surrounding areas within a rather large radius will be seriously affected in the case of a severe accident. Neighbouring municipalities, therefore, have insisted that NPPs should not be restarted without their agreement (Izumi 2020;Kikuchi 2020). In addition, a number of movements have insisted that the NPP restart should be judged via a prefectural referendum. Draft ordinances for a prefectural referendum on a restart were submitted to some prefectural assemblies where NPPs were located. Although these drafts were rejected, they called into question the conventional local agreement in which ordinary citizens were not directly involved.
Thus, conflicts have arisen over not only whether NPPs should be restarted, but also how and by whom the local agreement on the restart should be made. While public attitudes in Japan towards NPPs have been surveyed and analysed extensively (Kimura, Furuta, and Suzuki 2003;Kitada 2013), public attitudes towards local agreements have not been thoroughly investigated. To better understand the local politics of restarting NPPs in Japan and to promote the design of a more socially acceptable local agreement process, it is necessary to explore public opinions regarding local decision-making process. Therefore, this study examined public attitudes towards local agreements in Japan using data from an online questionnaire survey conducted in four prefectures with NPPs. Through exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis of factor scores, the present study illuminated the latent factors behind public attitudes towards local agreements and how these factors were related to other attitudinal and demographic factors.

Local agreements in studies of LULUs
Local agreement processes have been a central issue in research on conflicts over locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) such as energy infrastructure (Aldrich 2008;Lesbirel 1998), waste disposal facilities (T. Nakazawa 2017), and human service facilities (Young 2012). Given the recognition that the conventional Decide-Announce-Defend approach does not resolve these conflicts, a variety of ways to achieve local agreements have been proposed (T. Nakazawa 2018). Scholars and practitioners of siting increasingly turn to more democratic and voluntary processes (Fischer 2000;McAvoy 1999), advocating participation and deliberation of ordinary citizens and their own decision-making regarding accepting/rejecting a proposed facility. The Facility Siting Credo (Kunreuther, Susskind, and Aarts 1991), one of the most comprehensive approaches to local agreement, proposes a process which involves the public, develops trust, and convinces all stakeholders.
Although these approaches provide significant viewpoints to design a local agreement process, they leave open the questions of the range of areas and actors which should be involved and heard in local agreement processes, especially in a case such as NPPs in which diverse areas and actors are affected in various ways. Which areas should be considered "local"? This question concerns the ways in which "local" is defined. "Local" implies communities potentially affected by a facility and "local agreement" implicitly suggests that the affected communities should have the right to decide whether to accept a proposed facility (T. Nakazawa and Tatsumi 2022;Näsström 2011;Simcock 2014). However, as the geographical scale of the area affected by a facility is difficult to determine, which areas should be considered "local" is often open to debate (Simcock 2014). A controversial facility frequently has spill-over impacts across political administrative boundaries (Lesbirel 2011). Furthermore, the extent of the potential damage caused by an accident at some such facilities can be uncertain, both in terms of scale and seriousness. Therefore, political battles arise over how "local" is defined and who should be included in, or excluded from, this category (Pesch 2019).
Even if "local" is properly defined, who should be involved and heard in the local agreement process? It is not always obvious whose judgement should be respected in local agreement, especially when, as in the case of restarting NPPs, positive/negative influences in different degrees are intricately intertwined, with a great degree of uncertainty, across diverse individuals, groups, and organisations. While participatory and deliberative processes by ordinary citizens or/ and stakeholders have been proposed, whose opinion and judgement should be heard in local agreement is open to debate.
On the other hand, while risk perception and acceptability with regard to LULUs have also been studied in risk research (Slovic et al. 2000;Peters and Slovic 1996), there have been empirical studies on perception of procedural justice. They examine whether perceived procedural fairness affects acceptance of locally undesirable facilities, often compared to outcome fairness, and under what conditions and contexts procedural justice is perceived to be more important (Besley 2012;Visschers and Siegrist 2012;Krütli et al. 2015;. However, there is a paucity of research on what procedures are considered acceptable or desirable to decide on controversial facility siting (Walker and Baxter 2017). Walker and Baxter (2017), in a comparative study of wind power development in Canada, find that procedural justice, particularly the ability of residents to influence outcomes is important for local acceptability. Knudsen et al. (2015) analyse procedural justice in the categories such as information, representativeness, voice, consideration, logic and influence, looking into their significance and interaction. However, as Simcock (2016) argues, what is considered procedurally fair is complicated and depends on the context and history of the case under study. The current study, therefore, clarifies public attitudes in the specific context of and actual issues surrounding the local agreement to restart NPPs in Japan.

Conflicts over NPPs in Japan and local agreements
As noted above, local politics have significantly influenced Japan's nuclear policy (Lesbirel 1998;Aldrich and Fraser 2017;Kikuchi 2020). In fact, even before the Fukushima nuclear accident, agreements from local governments and organisations played a significant role in the construction process. Construction of a new reactor requires the consent of the prefectural governor. Although a host municipality does not have legal authority, mayors have historically served as powerful veto players (Aldrich and Fraser 2017), generally based on safety agreements with power companies. Utilities must obtain the agreement of local governments in addition to rights holders at the local level, such as fishermen (Lesbirel 1998;Aldrich 2008).
Numerous studies have clarified the local agreement process for the construction and restart of NPPs in Japan. The response of local governments and community organisations, such as fishing cooperatives, to the construction of nuclear power plants has been described in detail (Kainuma 2011;Takeuchi 2014). The role and impact of compensation has also been examined. The Japanese government established various subsidies and grant programmes through the Three Laws for Power Source Development (Kato et al. 2013), and power companies tried to gain local approval by compensating fishermen and landowners and providing voluntary donations to local governments and other local organisations (Lesbirel 1998;Kato et al. 2013). It has also been pointed out how governmental grant programmes affect host municipalities and make them dependent on nuclear industries (Yuasa 2018;Shimizu 2011), often discussed in combination with the economic and industrial disparities between urban and rural areas of Japan (Shrader-Frechette 2012; Park and Sovacool 2018). A local referendum regarding NPPs has attracted much attention, as it works as a powerful collective veto. In particular, the case of Maki Town in Niigata Prefecture in the 1990s has received special attention, as it was the first local referendum conducted on a local ordinance in Japan (H. Nakazawa 2005;Juraku, Suzuki, and Sakura 2007). Sugawara et al.(2009Sugawara et al.( , 2010 focused on the role of the safety agreements established between local governments and power companies in the local agreement process for installing new reactors and using MOX fuel. Izumi (2019, 2020) elucidated the local agreement process for restarting NPPs after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
However, public attitudes towards the local agreement process have been understudied, while public opinion on nuclear power has been extensively investigated (Kimura, Furuta, and Suzuki 2003;Kitada 2013). Uezono, Eguchi, and Seki (2012), based on a survey of the attitudes of the citizens of Matsue City regarding the Shimane NPP, found the relation between the extent of "local" that respondents considered desirable and their attitudes towards the NPP. However, the study did not clarify how attitudes towards the "local" range are related to perceptions of areas and actors that should be respected, or how attitudes towards local agreements differ among sociodemographic groups such as gender, generation, and place of residence. Tatsumi and Nakazawa (2021a) and T. Nakazawa and Tatsumi (2022) studied public attitudes towards the local agreement process related to the Hamaoka NPP in Shizuoka Prefecture. They showed how public attitudes towards the local agreement differed according to attitudes towards the NPP and sociodemographic group. However, it is still unclear whether the results of these studies on the Hamaoka NPP are applicable to other Japanese NPPs.
To fill the gaps in existing studies, the present study examined public attitudes towards local agreements for four NPPs in different prefectures: Hamaoka NPP in Shizuoka Prefecture, Tokaidaini NPP in Ibaraki Prefecture, Onagawa NPP in Miyagi Prefecture, and Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP in Niigata Prefecture. These four cases were chosen because these NPPs have not been restarted as of the end of 2021, and prefectural referendums were requested for all of them. These similarities make the public attitudes towards local agreements comparable, allowing for the application of the same questionnaire.

Four NPPs and conflicts over local agreements
This section provides an overview of the four NPPs (Table 1) and illustrates the issues with local agreements after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, focusing on the geographical extension of safety agreements and prefectural referendums. * The year in which the first reactor was put into operation. ** The number of reactors under decommissioning is shown in parenthesis.

Overview of the four NPPs
The Hamaoka NPP is located in Omaezaki City, Shizuoka Prefecture. Chubu Electric Power (CEP) began construction of the first reactor in 1971. 4 Today, Hamaoka has five reactors, and the first two are currently in the decommissioning process. Following the Fukushima nuclear accident, then Prime Minister Naoto Kan requested that CEP halt the operation of the Hamaoka NPP. CEP has since introduced a variety of safety measures to prevent tsunami damage and severe accidents.
As of December 2021, the third and fourth reactors were being evaluated under the New Regulatory Requirements.
The Tokai-daini NPP is located in Tokai Village, Ibaraki Prefecture. Historically, many nuclear facilities and research institutes have been built in this village 5 , including Japan's first commercial NPP and spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. In 1999, Japan's first critical accident occurred at a nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Tokai Village. The Tokai-daini NPP, which is operated by the Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC), started operation in 1978. When the Great East Japan Earthquake hit in March 2011, the NPP automatically shut down its reactor. In 2018, the installation modification license and the extension of operation period were approved by the Nuclear Regulation Authority; as of the end of 2021, the plant has not been restarted.
In 1968, the Tohoku Electric Power Company decided to build a nuclear power plant in the towns of Onagawa and Oshika (merged in 2005, now Ishinomaki City) in Miyagi Prefecture. 6 In the Great East Japan Earthquake, the three reactors were hit by a strong tremor and a 13-meter tsunami, causing them to shut down automatically. The power company has been working on safety measures and was approved for installation modification in February 2020 and a construction plan in March 2021. Additionally, in November 2020, the governor of Miyagi Prefecture met with the mayors of Onagawa Town and Ishinomaki City to confirm the local agreement for the restart. The power company aims to complete its safety work by the end of fiscal year 2022.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP is located in Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village, Niigata Prefecture. 7 The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) began constructing the first reactor in 1978. Subsequently, additional units were built, and the seventh reactor began commercial operations in 1997, making it the world's largest NPP. In 2007, the plant was hit by the 6.8 magnitude Chuetsuoki earthquake, which shook the plant far more than expected at the time of construction. 8 This resulted in the automatic shutdown of all four reactors in operation, the sinking of roads within the NPP premises, and damage to the power transmission facilities. In 2017, the sixth and seventh reactors received approval for installation modification under the new regulatory standards.

Extension of "local" and prefectural referenda
After the Fukushima accident, the geographical range of municipalities required to formulate evacuation plans has expanded due to the establishment of Urgent Protective Action Planning Zones (UPZs) which cover a radius of approximately 30 km from an NPP. Local municipalities with a UPZ are legally required to formulate an effective regional evacuation plan; they have been seeking the conclusion of safety agreements and involvement in local decision making on the restart of NPPs.
There has been considerable controversy over the safety agreement for the Hamaoka NPP, especially after the Fukushima nuclear disaster (T. Nakazawa and Tatsumi 2019). Its safety agreement includes not only Omaezaki City, where the NPP is located, but also three neighbouring cities. The agreement has been interpreted as granting all these cities the right of prior approval for the construction and modification of the reactor. 9 However, following the Fukushima disaster, seven municipalities in the surrounding UPZ argued that they should make a safety agreement with CEP. In 2016, a safety agreement with CEP was finalised without explicit reference to the right of prior approval.
In the case of the Tokai-daini NPP, there have been negotiations between local governments and the JAPC over the expansion of the right of prior consent. Before the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Tokai Village and the five neighbouring cities concluded safety agreements with the JAPC. However, only Tokai Village, as the host municipality (and Ibaraki Prefecture), had the right of prior consent (Isago 2019). In 2012, the six municipalities agreed to demand that the five cities other than Tokai Village have the same authority to be involved in local decision-making and began negotiations with Ibaraki Prefecture and the JAPC. As a result, a new safety agreement was signed in March 2018, which effectively guaranteed the right of prior approval to the five cities in addition to Tokai Village. 10 As for the Onagawa NPP, prior to the Fukushima nuclear accident, the municipalities of Onagawa and Oshika (Ishinomaki City after the merger in 2006) had a safety agreement with Tohoku Electric Power Company that stipulated the right of prior consent. 11 However, in 2013, five cities and towns within the UPZ began discussions on creating a safety agreement. 12 In April 2015, the five cities and towns signed a safety agreement with Tohoku Electric Power Company. 13 Although there were calls for the same prior approval rights as the host governments, this was not included in the safety agreement. Instead, the cities signed a memorandum of understanding with Miyagi Prefecture that allowed them to express their opinions on a NPP restart through the prefecture.
Regarding the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP, TEPCO, Kashiwazaki City, and Kariwa Village (and Niigata Prefecture) finalised a safety agreement in 1983 that stipulated the right of prior consent. 14 Since 2011, there have been calls from neighbouring municipalities and those within a 30 km radius of the NPP to address a safety agreement. 15 In January 2013, 28 municipalities in the prefecture other than Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village signed a safety agreement with TEPCO, 16 which included a clause for on-site inspections by local governments within a 30 km radius but did not guarantee the right to prior approval. In August 2020, local council members from eight cities and towns within the UPZ established a study group to expand the right of prior consent. 17 In addition, citizen groups requested the use of a prefectural referendum to determine public attitude towards NPP resumption in these four prefectures. For the Hamaoka NPP, citizen groups collected more than 165,000 signatures and submitted a draft of the referendum ordinance to the Shizuoka Prefectural Assembly in 2012 (T. Nakazawa and Tatsumi 2019). Similarly, a draft ordinance for a prefectural referendum was submitted to the prefectural assemblies of Niigata in December 2012 18 , Miyagi in February 2019, and Ibaraki in January 2020 (Sato and Tokuda 2021). Even though these direct requests for prefectural referendum ordinances gathered the legally required number of signatures, they were all rejected by the prefectural assemblies.

Data
To explore public attitudes towards the local agreements for these NPPs, an online questionnaire survey was conducted in the four prefectures from the 18th to 22nd of February 2021. Respondents were recruited from internet monitors at Rakuten Insight.
In this survey, each of the four prefectures was categorised into four areashost, neighbouring, UPZ, and other municipalitiesto explore the differences in attitudes towards local agreements according to their residential area. 19 To collect a sufficient number of samples, the target number of respondents was set for each area ( Table 2). The target number was much smaller in host municipalities because there were few internet monitors in these rural and less populated areas. The target number was allocated according to gender and age for the UPZ and the other municipalities, but not for the host and the neighbouring municipalities due to the limited number of monitors in these areas. If the number of samples in an area did not reach the target number, it was reallocated to the larger area. Consequently, 4,400 responses were collected, as shown in Table 2. Several areas The questionnaire included 21 questions: six questions in the initial screening survey and 15 questions in the main survey. In addition to providing demographic characteristics, participants were asked whether they agreed with the restart of the NPP located in their prefecture and with the idea of a prefectural referendum on the restart. Respondent attitudes towards nuclear energy and the local agreement on the restart of their nearby NPP, as well as political attitudes and experiences, were also solicited (see Appendix for the questions and options used in the study).

Exploratory factor analysis
To identify latent factors behind respondents' attitudes towards local agreements, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the answers to Q5 and Q6. In these questions, respondents were asked to indicate on a five-point scale (1 indicating "agree" and 5 signifying "disagree") their level of agreement or disagreement with each of the following statements: Q5. Degree to which each area should be heard and respected in the local agreement process S5-1. Areas where relocation of residents is expected in the case of an accident S5-2. Areas where temporary evacuation is expected in the case of an accident S5-3. Areas where radioactive decontamination will be required in the case of an accident S5-4. Areas where reputational damage is expected in the case of an accident S5-5. Areas that will have to accept evacuees in the case of an accident S5-6. Areas where there is concern that industry and employment will deteriorate if nuclear power plants continue to be shut down S5-7. Areas where there is concern that the local government's finances will worsen if nuclear power plants continue to be shut down S5-8. Urban areas that consume electricity from the nuclear power plant Q6. Degree to which the respondent agrees or disagrees with each statement on actors that could be involved in a local agreement S6-1. Once the safety examination by the Nuclear Regulation Authority is completed, power companies should be able to restart NPPs without agreement from local authorities.
S6-2. As the restart of NPPs is a national issue, the Japanese government should be responsible for making judgements regarding restarts.
S6-3. Local assemblies and elected governors/mayors should be responsible for making judgements regarding restarts.
S6-4. NPPs should be restarted when the host municipalities agree with it, even if neighbouring municipalities are opposed to it.
S6-5. Court judgement should be respected regarding a restart.
S6-6. As the problems related to the restart of NPPs are too difficult for ordinary citizens to understand, these judgements should be left to experts. S6-7. The restart of NPPs should be judged by the will of ordinary citizens, without leaving it to politicians and experts.
S6-8. Governments, companies, and experts who promote the restart of NPPs provide accurate information to the public.
Q5 pertains to which geographic areas should be heard and respected in the local agreement process. Conventional local agreements typically consist of a relatively smaller range, such as those areas that would suffer economic and financial deterioration (S5-6, S5-7). Those directly damaged by pollution and evacuation (S5-1, S5-2, S5-3) might be associated with broader geographical areas, as the pollution caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster showed. Also, "areas where reputational damage is expected" (S5-4), "areas that will have to accept evacuees" (S5-5), and "urban areas of electricity consumption" (S5-8) suggest a relatively wider range of areas that have been excluded from the conventional local agreement. Q6 is concerned with which actors' views should be heard and respected. The power companies (S6-1), the Japanese government (S6-2), and experts (S6-6) have been significant parts of the "nuclear village": the vested interest structure that has promoted nuclear power in Japan (Kingston 2012). S6-8 also asked about participants' degree of trust in those who promote nuclear power, including influential actors not only in national energy politics, but also in the local agreement process. Local assemblies and governor/mayors (S6-3) have played significant roles in the conventional local agreement process; host municipalities (S6-4) in particular were potential political veto players in the restart process (Aldrich and Fraser 2017). However, the will of ordinary citizens (S6-7) has not been considered, at least not directly, in the conventional local agreement. Court judgement (S6-5) is another factor that has influenced NPP restarts, sometimes ruling to halt their resumption, especially at the district court level (Aldrich and Fraser 2017).
For factor analysis, the relationship between the observed items was first calculated using the polychoric correlation. When the correlation coefficients between some items were greater than 0.9, one of them was selected for the analysis to avoid the risk of multicollinearity, as shown below: S5-1, S5-2, and S5-3 ⇒ selected Q5-1.
Ultimately, 12 items were used in the final analysis, and the sample size was 4,400. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (KMO) was 0.84, indicating that the sample size was sufficient for exploratory factor analysis.
To determine the number of factors, we examined two to six factors estimated using multiple methods. Finally, three factors resulting from the parallel analysis were adopted. Factor extraction was estimated using the maximum likelihood method with polychoric correlation. Independent cluster rotation, which is a diagonal rotation assuming a correlation among factors, was used as the rotation method. Based on the results of the factor analysis, we used the tenBerge method and estimated the standardised factor score to measure the relative standing of a respondent on a latent factor.

Multi-regression analysis
After identifying the factors behind attitudes towards local agreement, a multi-regression analysis was conducted on each of the three factor scores as the dependent variables to examine what affects attitudes towards local agreements. The explanatory variables used in the model included the following factors ("ref" indicates reference categories): . Q1. Agree or disagree with the restart (ref. "Agree"), . Q2. Agree or disagree with a prefectural referendum (ref. "Agree"), . Q3. The range of municipalities from which agreement should be required before the restart (ref. "All municipalities in the prefecture"), As for attitudes towards the restart of NPPs, we used answers to Q1, which asked if participants agreed or disagreed with the restart of specific NPPs located in their prefecture (three options: agree, disagree, or don't know). Some social psychological research argues that procedural fairness is less important for those who are certain about the right outcome or feel that a decision has a "moral mandate" (Mullen and Skitka 2006;Skitka, Bauman, and Sargis 2005). In the research on siting conflicts, Gross (2007) argues that those with an overriding belief in the need for a project care more about the outcome than the process. Attitudes towards nuclear power are expected to influence what procedures are considered desirable.
The prefectural referendum (Q2) and the range of prior consent (Q3) were incorporated into our model to examine the relationship between attitudes towards the local agreement and specific procedures actually in dispute. Support for the prefectural referendum, asked for three options: agree, disagree, or don't know, can be linked to judgements by the ordinary citizens. Tatsumi and Nakazawa (2021b) argue that disagreement with the prefectural referendum is associated with a rejection of the need for any local agreement, which is assumed to be related to attitudes that attach importance to judgement by the national government. Q3 asked about the range of municipalities from which agreement should be required before a restart as shown below: Q3. The range of municipalities from which agreement should be required before a restart 1. Only the host municipalities 2. The host and neighbouring municipalities 3. All municipalities included in the UPZ 4. All municipalities in the prefecture 5. All municipalities in the prefecture and municipalities adjacent to the prefecture 6. No need for agreement from any municipality 7. Don't know The range of prior consent has been another issue of contention over local agreements as mentioned above. Including this variable in the model elucidates which geographical range of prior consent is associated with attitudes towards local agreement as measured by Q5 and Q6. Our model also included demographic factors, namely the four areas (host, neighbouring, UPZ, and other municipalities), the prefectures (Shizuoka, Ibaraki, Miyagi and Niigata), gender, and age. Prior research noted that place of residence in relation to an NPP affects attitudes towards nuclear power in Japan (Kimura, Furuta, and Suzuki 2003) and the perception of its risks and benefits (Kataoka and Fukino 2015). However, recent studies by T. Nakazawa and Tatsumi (2022) and Tatsumi and Nakazawa (2021a) reported a relatively weak and insignificant influence of the residential areas on attitudes towards the local agreement in Shizuoka Prefecture. The current study investigated whether this finding holds for other NPP areas. On the other hand, the four NPPs in our study have different power companies, safety agreements, and histories of local people engaging with them. As Simcock (2016) argues, what procedures are perceived as fair depends on context and history. It can be assumed that there are differences in attitudes towards the local agreements between the four prefectures. In addition, prior studies have shown that attitudes towards nuclear power in Japan differ according to gender and age (Iwai and Shishido 2013;Sakaguchi 2016). The present study examined whether attitudes towards the local agreement also vary according to these factors.
Answers to Q1-3, as well as residential areas (the four areas and the prefectures) and gender, were considered categorical variables and used as dummy variables. Age was centred on the mean of all respondents (48.3 years old). The analysis was performed in R using standard functions and the psych, polycor, and GPArotation packages.

Three factors
Exploratory factor analysis identified three latent factors behind respondents' attitudes towards local agreements. Table 4 lists the factor loadings and correlations among the factors. The first factor (F1) was named "the conventional decision-makers." This factor was primarily formed of six items from Q6, which pertained to actors who should be heard and respected in the local agreement process. It was concerned with attitudes towards those who have been conventionally as well as institutionally responsible for making decisions regarding NPPs, such as the national government, local governments, host municipalities, experts, courts, and those promoting NPPs. F1 was positively correlated with support for these conventional decision-makers.
The second factor (F2) was interpreted as "those negatively affected." This factor was mainly composed of three items from Q5 regarding areas expected to be negatively affected in the case of an accident as well as Q6's inquiry on whether to respect the judgement of ordinary citizens. F2 was positively correlated with supportive attitudes towards the judgement of ordinary citizens who are expected to be negatively affected if accidents occur. The third factor (F3) was understood as "those benefitting from the restart," since it was primarily formed by two items from Q5 concerned with whether to respect the opinions of areas expected to benefit economically from the restart of NPPs. F3 was positively correlated with respect for those benefitting from a restart in the local agreement process.
There were correlations among some of the three factors. It is understandable that F1, "the conventional decision makers," was negatively correlated with F2, "those negatively affected," since F2 suggested broadening the geographical meaning of "local" beyond the conventional local agreement and respecting the will of ordinary citizens. It is interesting that F3, "those benefitting from the restart," was not correlated with F1. Although F3 was associated with respecting the benefits of restarting NPPs and seemed compatible with conventional decision makers, it was instead positively corelated with F2, "those negatively affected." This is possibly because like F2, F3, with its relatively high factor loadings on S5-4 "areas of reputational damage" and S5-5 "areas of accepting evacuees," was also associated with supportive attitudes towards broadening the definition of "local."

Results of multi-regression analysis
Scores of the three factors illustrated how attitudes towards local agreements differed according to attitudes towards NPP restarts and prefectural referendums, as well as by residential area (the four areas and the four prefectures), gender, and age. This subsection shows the effects of each variable on the factor scores using multi-regression analysis ( Table 5).
The goodness-of-fit showed that the model predicted the outcomes for F1 and F2 relatively well, with coefficients of determination above 0.4. For F3, the coefficients of determination were much lower; the result must only be used as a reference.
The results showed that agreeing or disagreeing with the restart in their prefecture (Q1) was strongly related to each of the three factor scores. Compared with those who agreed with restarting the NPPs, the anti-restart group was less supportive of "the conventional decision makers" (F1) and was more likely to respect "those negatively affected" in the case of an accident in local agreements  F2). To "those benefitting from the restart" (F3), the anti-restart group showed a weak negative relationship. This trend was consistent with the results of a survey conducted in Shizuoka Prefecture by T. Nakazawa and Tatsumi (2022). In the light of the findings of the previous studies mentioned above (Mullen and Skitka 2006;Skitka, Bauman, and Sargis 2005;Gross 2007), it seems reasonable that the pro-restart group is more supportive of the conventional decision-makers, who make a restart much easier, while they are more against "those negatively affected" who could broaden the range of municipal power beyond the conventional local agreement. However, careful investigation is needed to determine whether this is just a strategic choice; the links might be mediated by other factors such as political orientation and ideology. Further research is needed to elucidate the reasons for this connection. The range of municipalities included in a local agreement (Q3) is significantly related to each of the three factor scores as expected. Generally, respondents who preferred to include a narrower geographic area for local agreements were more likely to support "the conventional decision-makers" (F1) and less likely to advocate for "those negatively affected" (F2) and "those benefitting from the restart" (F3). This result was not surprising, as "the conventional decision-makers" (F1) are associated with support for narrower areas of local agreement, while "those negatively affected" (F2) are related to the inclusion of broader geographical areas. The result indicates that "those benefitting from the restart" (F3) were also associated with support for a broader geographical range for local agreements as argued above, although this factor was also related to respecting areas of economic damage from the shutdown of NPPs, which could suggest a narrower geographical definition of "local." It is interesting that the study found that those who denied the necessity of local agreements tended to advocate for "the conventional decision-makers" (F1), although this factor was positively related to the judgement of host municipalities (S6-4) and the judgement of local autonomies (S6-3). This might be because F1 was strongly related to non-local actors and institutions such as power companies (S6-1) and the national government (S6-2). Agreeing or disagreeing with a prefectural referendum (Q2) also influenced attitudes towards local agreements. Those who disagreed with the necessity of a referendum were more supportive of "the conventional decision-makers" (F1) than those who advocated for it, and they tended to be less supportive of "those negatively affected" (F2) and "those benefitting from the restart" (F3) than the pro-referendum group. It is natural that the anti-referendum group did not support "those negatively affected" (F2), which indicates a broadening geographical range for "local" and advocates for the judgement of ordinary citizens. Additionally, it is unsurprising that disagreeing with a prefectural referendum was negatively associated with "those benefitting from the restart" (F3), which was also related to support for a wider geographical range for local agreements, as the result of Q3 showed. It is interesting that the result of "the conventional decision-makers" (F1) might imply that those disagreeing with a prefectural referendum tend to deny the necessity of any local agreement, given the implication of the result of Q3 as discussed above. Based on a questionnaire survey in Shizuoka Prefecture, Tatsumi and Nakazawa (2021b) argued that the anti-referendum group tended to consider any local agreement process as unnecessary for restarting a NPP. The results of this study may also reflect this tendency.
The difference among the four living areas was not very clear. Those living in "the neighbouring municipalities" were slightly more likely to respect the judgement of "those negatively affected" (F2) compared with those living in "other municipalities." "The host municipalities" had higher coefficients than "the neighbouring municipalities," but the difference was not statistically significant, possibly due to the smaller sample size. This result is reasonable, as these municipalities are expected to incur the most damage in the case of an accident. On the other hand, no significant difference was found for F1 and F3. It seems not unreasonable to expect where respondents live significantly affects their attitudes towards local agreements, given the divergent interests in the resumption and the different degree of involvement in the conventional local agreement process across different areas. However, in our model, the residential areas had little effect on their attitudes towards local agreements when other attitudinal and demographic factors were controlled. This result is consistent with T. Nakazawa and Tatsumi (2022) and Tatsumi and Nakazawa (2021b) which showed the area of residence has little, if any, influence on attitudes towards local agreements as it relates to the Hamaoka NPP. 20 For the four prefectures (ref: "Shizuoka Prefecture"), there was a significant difference between Shizuoka and Niigata prefectures for all three factors. Respondents in Niigata Prefecture were relatively less supportive of "the conventional decision-makers" (F1) and "those benefitting from the restart" (F3), while they were more likely to support "those negatively affected" (F2). Also, respondents in Ibaraki Prefecture were less likely to advocate for "those benefitting from the restart" (F3). These results were possibly related to the fact that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP is owned and operated by TEPCO, which was responsible for the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. It is reasonable that the score for "the conventional decision-makers" (F1) was lower in Niigata Prefecture since this factor was positively related to trust in those promoting NPPs, such as the national government and power companies. The distrust in TEPCO might lead to the perception of higher risk and a relatively strong respect for the judgement of "those negatively affected" (F2). The results of F3 might be affected by gaps in the location of NPPs and energy consumption areas. While the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP is in Niigata Prefecture, the NPP, operated by TEPCO, mainly provides electricity to the Tokyo metropolitan area. The Tokai-daini NPP provides electricity not only to TEPCO, but also to the Tohoku Electric Power Company.
Gender and age also had independent effects on attitudes towards local agreements. Female respondents were less likely to support "the conventional decision-makers" (F1), while they felt more positively towards "those negatively affected" (F2) and "those benefitting from the restart" (F3) than male respondents. As for age, the older the respondents were, the more likely they were to negatively perceive "the conventional decision-makers" (F1) and "those benefitting from the restart" (F3), and the more likely they were to positively perceive "those negatively affected" (F2). Attitudes towards nuclear power in Japan differ according to gender and age; men and younger generations are more supportive of nuclear power than women and the older generation (Iwai and Shishido 2013;Sakaguchi 2016). However, these demographic factors influenced attitudes towards local agreements even when attitudes towards a restart were controlled. To explore the cause of these differences, it is necessary to examine other variables such as political ideology, experiences, and other demographic characteristics.

Conclusion
This study examined public attitudes towards local agreements regarding restarting NPPs in Japan. Three factors were identified behind public attitudes using exploratory factor analysis of data from an online questionnaire survey conducted in four Japanese prefectures with NPPs. In addition, the results of a multi-regression analysis showed the additional factors that affected each of the three factors. Opinions on restarting NPPs, prefectural referendums, and the geographical range of local agreements were significantly related to attitudes towards local agreements. There were also differences according to gender and age, while residential area (the four areas) was barely influential. These results indicate that similar trends to the findings of T. Nakazawa and Tatsumi (2022) and Tatsumi and Nakazawa (2021a) in Shizuoka Prefecture exist in other prefectures with NPPs. On the other hand, our study found differences across the four prefectures, suggesting that unique history and circumstances of each NPP have an influence on the public attitudes towards local agreements.
As noted in the introduction, it is important to understand public attitudes towards local agreement, as conflict has arisen not only over whether NPPs should be restarted, but also over how and by whom a local agreement on a restart should be made. Of course, this study was a result of an online questionnaire survey with internet monitors; the respondents were not randomly sampled, and the results should be carefully interpreted. However, by providing a better understanding of the local politics regarding restarting NPPs in Japan, which has been insufficiently studied, this study paved the way for resolving conflicts over local agreements and designing a local agreement process that is more socially acceptable.