일본 지방의회 개혁과 의회기능 강화

The Reform of Japanese Local Councils and the Strengthening of Function- The Case of the Mie Prefecture Council -

The Japanese local councils have been suppressed in terms of exerting their functions properly since they were founded in the 1880’s. But after the enforcement of the decentralization package law in 2000 and the appearance of a lot of reformist heads of local districts in the early 2000’s, the local councils launched a large-scale reform. The aim of these legislative reforms was to enforce the function of the councils by revitalizing the activities of local councils. This study analyzes in an empirical manner how such reforms have changed the operation of local councils. Our discussion concentrates on the council of the Mie prefecture. The reforms of the Mie council can be classified into three categories: the strengthening of the relation between the residents and the council, the strengthening of restraints on an administrative team, and the council- internal reforms. Our primary findings are as follows: the institutional reforms led to the activation of the function of the council immediately after the launch of the reforms. As time goes by, however, the reform performance declined gradually. It is thus concluded that the reforms of the Mie council have not yet been sufficiently conducted