This writer once proposed a “substantial federal system” (Furukawa 1993) that can be
realized under the current constitution. This idea is unrelated to legal arguments and suggests
merely a reorganization of the administrative system. A substantial federal system can be
achieved by simply reorganizing the central government’s branch offices without a
constitutional revision. Amalgamation of prefectural governments is another matter altogether.
True decentralization cannot be realized through the legal system alone. Relying too much on
a legal system, which is actually only a framework, is almost the same as the continental
European view of “Rechtsstaat” (legalistic state). This view easily transforms into the
“wistful thinking” by which people feel everything would go well if only a legal system is in
place.
Second is the political aspect of central-local relations. The pioneering policies of local
authorities have influenced national public policy (Reed 1986). Several local policies regarding
welfare and the environment, for instance, have been adopted as national programs, although
they may have been criticized as too redistributive at the local level. In another instance, the
chairman of the Second Provisional Commission on Administrative Reform pointed to
administrative reform in a small town as an example of what central government reform
should entail. Information disclosure also had its start in municipal government in the first
half of the 1980s, and it was not until 1999 that the national law was enacted.
As the political authority of the central government has declined, governance has
undergone changes as well. The role of other sectors of society—the private sector, the
market, and nonprofit organizations (NPOs)—has increased correspondingly. In this new
framework, the vertical administration control model is no longer applicable—although it may
still describe one aspect of a specific case—the thrust of the reforms having been the removal
of the situations for which this model was most relevant.