Kitamura Wataru (2000), meanwhile, argues that the political and economic changes that have
recently occurred in Japan as a result of international impetus are a “coalition of
decentralization,” involving business and local government. This is the result of the desire of
the business sector to have a more flexibly managed regional economic policy, so that local
authorities have greater discretionary power.
The social system developed in Japan in the wake of World War II was no different from
the “1940 System” (Noguchi 1995), which prescribed protectionist and paternalistic public
policies, especially in the areas of banking, finance, and industry. Ironically, the factors now
accelerating decentralization in Japan are no different from those that contributed to the end
of an earlier system.
Intergovernmental Relations
The term central-local government relations is often used in reference to the centralizeddecentralized
and fused-separate dimensions between the central government and local
authorities. It is generally believed that Japan’s central-local relations are centralized-fused
(Amakawa 1986). The concept of intergovernmental relations, dominant in the United States,
denotes the interactions between various levels of government, including the executive branch,
as well as comprehensive relations in a political setting (Wright 1988; Rhodes 1999).
Muramatsu Michio (1997), in his study on intergovernmental relations in Japan,
identifies three models: the vertical administration control model, the horizontal political
competition model, and the overlapping authority model.