Movement In Decentralization In Japan After The First Decentralization Reform

Decentralization is a curious policy for a central government to pursue. If politics is essentially about the struggle for power, why would anyone want to give away the power that one struggled for and won? This book argues that it is precisely party competition in search of power that propels decentralization. Koichi Nakano develops his core argument through in-depth, qualitative research on the politics of reform in France and Japan. Introducing the concept of oppositional policy, he traces the process through which parties in opposition reinvent their ideologies and policy platforms in an attempt to present themselves as the voice of the governed, broaden popular support through the advocacy of enhanced democratic control of government, and proceed to implement some of these oppositional policies after capturing power. This book, thus, takes the role of political parties in the democratic process seriously - parties take up certain issues and espouse certain solutions actively as weapons in the power struggle both on the electoral front and in the policy process. Party competition is not merely a formal condition of democracy; it is also a mechanism with substantive policy impact on its evolution. Party Politics and Decentralization in Japan and France will be of interest to students of Japanese and French politics and comparative politics in general.

Adding a new perspective to the current literature on decentralization in Japan, Cities, Autonomy and Decentralization in Japan, approaches the subject from an urban studies and planning approach. The essays in the collection present a cogent compilation of case studies focusing on the past, present and future of decentralization in Japan. These include small scale development in the fields such as citizen participation (machizukuri), urban form and architecture, disaster prevention and conservation of monuments. The contributors suggest that new trends are emerging after the bursting of Japan's economic bubble and assess them in the context of the country's larger socio-political system. This in-depth analysis of the development outside of Japan provides a valuable addition to students of Urban, Asian and Japanese Studies.

Well known for its centralized local economic system under the national equity principle, Japan has experimented with transforming this regional redistribution system into a new local economic system of governance for more autonomous local economic growth over the past decade. This new local economic governance has been characterized by the increasing involvement of social actors, such as large private corporations and local communities, in policy processes. This dissertation reveals that new local economic growth strategies for the new local economic governance have operated under very different models in different regions of Japan, although all new local programs have been introduced under the banner of public-private partnership. New partnership programs in the local economic policy arena in the 2000s have moved toward the market model, in which local authorities pursue growth by attracting international business resources, in the major metropolitan areas around Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, whereas they have moved toward the community model, in which local authorities purge growth by mobilizing local organizational resources, in the rest of Japan. The market model is embedded in market reform for deregulation that makes large private corporations' freer activities easy, whereas the community model is an attempt to strengthen the structure of endogenous networks among local authorities and local economic and social elites. This dissertation highlights two variables to explain regional variations of local economic growth strategies: dual local economic structures and diverging politico-economic coalitions. First, under the rule of Koizumi Junichiro, a coalition of promoting market reform among neoliberal politicians and large private corporations has won politically over a coalition for maintaining national equity among politicians embedded in traditional conservative center-local linkages, local business groups, and local leadership of underdeveloped areas, in national politics. The regional redistribution mechanism stopped functioning in this political choice. Instead, market reform and local community participation have been introduced as alternatives to regional redistribution mechanisms. Second, the major metropolitan areas and other underdeveloped areas, which came to stand on equal conditions for autonomous local economic growth strategies under decentralization reforms, are characterized by different situations in attracting private investment. The competitive regions of the major metropolitan areas have taken the market model as their main local economic growth strategy because they are competitive to attract private investment. In contrast, the protected regions outside the major metropolitan areas have taken the community model as their key local economic growth strategy because they have less competitive local economic structure of fading industries and scare population for attracting private investment. Over the past decade, reforms for public-private partnership in the local economic policy arena resulted in the disturbance of the Japanese way of balancing market powers and local interests in the postwar period. In the postwar period, the centralized regional redistribution mechanism, led by national politicians and central bureaucracies, functioned as a tool for social integration with consideration for national equity. However, experiments with the new form of local economic governance were not successful in balancing market reform with local community mobilization. The mobilization of local community resources could not match the political role of the regional redistribution mechanism outside the major metropolitan areas. In addition, market reform, which has been more effective in the advanced major metropolitan areas, has produced increasing regional economic disparity. Japan has faced a complicated stand-off between large private corporations detached from specific localities and local communities locked in place, which were connected by national political coordination mechanisms in the postwar period. Although each of two diverging local economic growth strategies has been effective in different regions, there was no national political mechanism for mediating local variations of these localized programs in the 2000s.

Japan boasts the second largest economy in the world and almost two thousand years of history. Yet, its first modern constitution, the Meiji Constitution, was not enacted until comparatively recently (1889). Since then, following World War II, Japan adopted its current Constitution, the Japanese Constitution of 1946. This book is designed to explain the outline of Japan's Constitution, together with a number of its unique characteristics and to offer an historical background and context which help explain its significance. Major topics covered include the constitutional history of Japan, fundamental principles of the Constitution, the people and the Emperor, the Diet and legislative power, Cabinet and executive power, and the Judiciary and judicial power. Also discussed is the protection of fundamental human rights, individual rights - including freedom of expression,economic freedoms, and social rights - pacifism and national defence, and the constitutional amendment and reform. Although the Japanese Constitution was enacted under the strong influence of the United States Constitution, many of its features are very different. For instance the existence of an Emperor, the long dominance of a conservative party over the Government, the relatively strong power of government bureaucrats, the absence of a leadership role in the Prime Minister, the small role the judiciary play in solving constitutional disputes and the struggle over national defence. Written in an accessible style and comprehensive in content, the reader will find this account of the constitutional law of Japan both unique and stimulating.

On March 11, 2011, Japan was struck by the shockwaves of a 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake originating less than 50 miles off its eastern coastline. The most powerful earthquake to have hit Japan in recorded history, it produced a devastating tsunami with waves reaching heights of over 130 feet that in turn caused an unprecedented multireactor meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This triple catastrophe claimed almost 20,000 lives, destroyed whole towns, and will ultimately cost hundreds of billions of dollars for reconstruction. In 3.11, Richard Samuels offers the first broad scholarly assessment of the disaster's impact on Japan's government and society. The events of March 2011 occurred after two decades of social and economic malaise-as well as considerable political and administrative dysfunction at both the national and local levels-and resulted in national soul-searching. Political reformers saw in the tragedy cause for hope: an opportunity for Japan to remake itself. Samuels explores Japan's post-earthquake actions in three key sectors: national security, energy policy, and local governance. For some reformers, 3.11 was a warning for Japan to overhaul its priorities and political processes. For others, it was a once-in-a-millennium event; they cautioned that while national policy could be improved, dramatic changes would be counterproductive. Still others declared that the catastrophe demonstrated the need to return to an idealized past and rebuild what has been lost to modernity and globalization. Samuels chronicles the battles among these perspectives and analyzes various attempts to mobilize popular support by political entrepreneurs who repeatedly invoked three powerfully affective themes: leadership, community, and vulnerability. Assessing reformers' successes and failures as they used the catastrophe to push their particular agendas-and by examining the earthquake and its aftermath alongside prior disasters in Japan, China, and the United States-Samuels outlines Japan's rhetoric of crisis and shows how it has come to define post-3.11 politics and public policy.

This report provides an overview of “multi-level governance” reforms in OECD countries. It includes case studies on Finland, France, Italy, Japan and New Zealand.

'Decentralization and Local Democracy in the World' constitutes a global reference on decentralization by presenting the contemporary situation of local governments in all regions of the world. The report analyzes local authorities in each continent under three main themes: the evolution of territorial structures; responsibilities and power, management and finances; and local democracy. An additional chapter is dedicated to the governance of large metropolises, where rapid growth presents major challenges, in particular in the fast-developing countries of the South. This report also offers a comparative overview of the different realities concerning the state of decentralization, and how the basic indispensable mechansims for local democracy do, or do not exist in come countries. Relationships between the state and local authorities are evolving toward innovative forms of cooperation. In this context, the role of local authorities in the development of global policies is increasingly recognized. The first Global Observatory on Local Democracy and Decentralization (GOLD) Report is one of the main products of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). The GOLD Report is the first of what will be a triennial publication. UCLG represents and defends the interests of local governments on the world stage, regardless of the size of the communities they serve. Headquartered in Barcelona, the organization's stated mission is: To be the united voice and world advocate of democratic local self-government, promoting its values, objectives and interests, through cooperation between local governments, and within the wider international community.