[Symposium/ Lecture]
"Social Governance Forum"
As a symposium to commemorate NIRA's 30th anniversary, NIRA held the "Social Governance Forum" in Tokyo on December 3, 2004. Over 200 people, including experts and those engaged in business in various sectors, participated in the forum.
Purpose
The purpose of this forum was to broadly discuss the ideal form of decentralized and civil societies in Japan from the perspectives of citizens, communities, cities, and local governments and to elucidate during the discussion process the pattern of politics and society in Japan, which is on the threshold of moving to a system of social governance.
Outline
The program consisted of a keynote lecture and a panel discussion.
Professor Naohiko Jinno, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo, delivered the keynote lecture with the theme of "Prospects and Tasks towards Decentralized Civil Society."
The panel discussion was conducted with the theme of "Viewing Citizens, Communities, Cities, and Local Governments in Decentralized Civil Society."
The panel discussion consisted of three parts: the citizen and community section, city section, and local government section. At the opening of each section, a presentation was made centering on the results of NIRA's independent research projects.
The following is an outline of the keynote lecture and the panel discussion.
(1) Keynote Lecture
Professor Jinno presented the historical perspective that the period of transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century was also a period of transition from an industrialized to a knowledge-based society. As one of the grounds for the argument, he cited that in the 1980s, human life began to change from the enhancement of quantity to that of quality. He then pointed out that in looking back on the lost decade of the 1990s, perhaps Japan should have paid attention to "civil society" beyond the failures of government and the market.
Then, regarding the "Tragedy of Commons" as a basic assumption of economics, Professor Jinno introduced the results from an academic survey that supported the superiority of civil society. To be specific, since the commons cannot exist without a relationship between the members that can avail themselves of the commons, it is not necessarily true that common land will fall victim to moral hazard, the land being subsequently used to the point of non-productivity.
As a future direction, Professor Jinno presented the basic idea of paying attention to "civil society," or a social system that is distinguished not from politics and economy, but from political and economic systems, and reorganizing the political system from the bottom up based on the commons.
Specifically, if citizens are defined as actors who take charge of social governance, they are seikatsusha (consumers), and will act as such. It is not until a system of cooperation created by such people is established that the market will be activated. That is to say, if the area of cooperation functions effectively, the area of competition in which corporations act will be activated. In the future Professor Jinno asserts that what we will establish as a society will be a decentralized and civil one that draws in the authority to form this sort of human society and life.
(2) Panel Discussion
[1] Citizen and Community Section
To begin, NIRA explained that in Japan, which has a relatively short history of independent civil society, policy responses are required in the institutional and educational areas to foster active civil activities.
To this end, the following opinions were presented: (1) Throughout Japan, social governance developed historically; (2) Training for regional development which was lost during the high economic growth period is necessary; (3) In the field of "citizen-participatory town planning," some local governments have considered a mechanism to support the "realization of wisdom";, and (4) NPOs should be founded at the grass-roots level.
[2] City Section
NIRA explained that as the ideal urban policies, it is urgently necessary to shift from normative to locally optimum policies, and that it is also necessary to establish a policy frame in which regions can plan their own future, and diverse and flexible urban rejuvenation strategies can be achieved under cooperation between citizens and city governments.
To this end, the following opinions were offered: (1) NPO actors need freedom, empathy and money; (2) Cultural fields including music must be made attractive and appealing while utilizing local resources; and (3) Italy serves as a point of reference as it achieved modernization by capitalizing on communities' identities.
[3] Local Government Section
NIRA introduced the image of a desirable local government system for Japan that was created based on the analyses of Western European nations, which have in recent years been rapidly changing into nations with decentralized governmental apparatuses.
With respect to this issue, the following opinions were offered: (1) It is best to interpret the world's examples as proving that anything is possible if one tries, rather than using them as lessons to be strictly emulated; (2) The reason that EU nations are keen to introduce the broader-based (province-based) local government system is that the administrative unit in the subsidy system that was created during the process of EU political and economic integration is the province: (3) Since current Japanese prefectures have a 120 year history, it is desirable to shift to the broader-based local government system while effectively utilizing each prefecture; (4) As prefectures in the future are expected to complement the autonomy of citizens of municipalities that could not be merged with central cities, the broader-based local government system should be considered based on a principle of complementarity.
[4] Summarizing Comment
The following prospect was presented. Given that a "city" in a knowledge-based society as a basic autonomous body functions as a life cell (a place where the human life function of having and fostering children and getting old exists comprehensively), the upper level wide-area autonomous body will assume a shape analogous to conglomerations of cells that form organs like the heart and liver. Specifically, lifestyles differ from region to region because the natural landscape differs, and therefore, the wide-area autonomous body will take a shape that is conscious of an ecosphere as an area in which people live and combine their wisdom.
"Towards the Establishment of an East Asian Economic Community"
On November 27, 2004, NIRA sponsored the 8th Scholarship Conference on the East Asian Economy on Cheju Island, South Korea, and it was participated in by researchers from the Korea Institute for International Economy Policy (KIEP), the China Development Institute (CDI), the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER) Taiwan, and others.
The main topics discussed in the conference were ? the current status of economic integration, ? presentation of the strategies and roadmap for realizing economic integration, and ? examination of an East Asian model for establishing an economic community.
Session I: The Present Status of the East Asian Economy and Future Perspectives
As shown by recent efforts made by the East Asian nations to conclude free trade agreements (FTAs), the region is expected to advance further towards realizing economic integration. As pointed out in one of the speeches given in this session, special attention must be paid to the role played by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In addition, the importance of non-economic factors, such as security trends and possible changes in the relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan, was suggested.
Session II: Strategies for Enhancing East Asian Economic Integration
Discussions were developed regarding FTAs involving Taiwan, with a focus on the measures to be taken, by reviewing the region's industrial structure. Meanwhile, some participants have expressed anxiety with respect to East Asia's pursuit of regionalism. Measures to ensure the integration of the financial and capital markets were also discussed.
Session III: View of East Asian Economic Integration from a Global Perspective - With a Focus on Cooperation in the Wide-area East Asian Economy
Opinions were exchanged on Taiwan's role in East Asian economic integration by participants from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan based on their respective viewpoints. They, however, were unable to reach a conclusion. Discussions were also developed concerning the measures necessary to solve the energy problems in Northeast Asia. Proposals including the mutual use of oil reserve facilities were presented.
Session IV: Overall Discussion
Based on the debates from the previous three sessions, active discussion was developed in order to explore measures and strategies necessary to enhance economic cooperation and integration in the East Asian region. Other issues that were identified include the necessity to assure that confidence will be built in the region, as confidence is the precondition of regional integration, and that the interests of smaller nations will be considered, given that priority tends to be placed on the interest of the more influential nations, such as Japan and China. In order to further examine these issues, it was agreed that discussion must continue.
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