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Press Briefing Information

Japan's Local Autonomy

Mr. Masayasu Kitagawa
(Professor, The Okuma School of Public Management, Waseda University)


Date: March 31,2005
Time: 15:00 - 16:30
Place: Foreign Press Center (6th floor, Nippon Press Center Bldg.)

The feud between central government and local governments is intensifying, while the discussion of 'trinity reform', aiming at financial reconstruction and decentralization of authority by reducing subsidiaries from the central government, continues. Although Japan's centralization of power since the Meiji Restoration has been ridiculed as being, for example, only 30% local autonomy, more and more local governments are now adopting a political system based on a manifesto that publicly pledges that purpose, means and source lie with the local residents. With the terms of local administrative chiefs due to expire within this year and many mergers of municipalities, more than 400 municipal elections are to be held this year. Taking this opportunity, the Local Manifesto Promotion Head League was launched in February this year. Will the third year of the trinity reform see the reform of local governments? FPC has asked Mr. Masayasu Kitagawa, former Governor of Mie Prefecture (Professor of Waseda University), who has been at the forefront of the decentralization of power and who advocated 'manifesto', to share his views with us on this subject. Mr. Kitagawa, also the president of the National Congress for 21st Century Japan, founded and represents the Local Manifesto Promotion Network.