Development of Intra-municipality Decentralisation Systems in Japan

Abstract

While globalisation and welfare state restructuring progress, the means and institutions by which government and the ‘public’ interact are dramatically changing. This chapter will concentrate on recent local government efforts for intra-municipality decentralisation systems in Japan, in order to contemplate the various rationales, institutions, and practices of governance at community level. Such systems have been introduced at the community level in Japan since the 2000s. However, we currently do not fully understand when, where, and in what form each mechanism, regarding intra-municipality decentralisation systems, has been introduced. Therefore, this chapter aims to clarify the status of the introduction of intra-municipality decentralisation systems and its characteristics. Data used in the chapter is based on questionnaire and interview surveys by the author. The questionnaire survey was conducted for all (1741) lowest-tier local governments in Japan. The interview survey was conducted for three local governments. While it was found that decentralisation systems have been widespread in both urban and rural areas, and that there are various systems for decentralisation within local governments, the following three characteristics of the systems were also observed. First, intra-municipality decentralisation systems work to complement existing communities’ functions. Second, the systems provide a place for citizen participation in local governments. Third, the systems contribute to building a framework for community governance. This is the movement of forming an organisation that voluntarily addresses and resolves local issues. There are cases in which even the colour of a business entity has emerged, such as providing more specialised social and welfare services than typical community organisations. However, regarding Japan’s decentralised organisations, it seems that the means of citizen participation is one of the problems. This study offers further discussion for meta-governance, and democracy and legitimacy of governance at the community level.