The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0033/00338.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00338}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Japan
Chapter 5B.   Local Government}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald M. Seekins}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{political
court
local
urban
government
japan
rural
japanese
community
district}
$Date{1981}
$Log{}
Title:       Japan
Book:        Japan, A Country Study
Author:      Donald M. Seekins
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 5B.   Local Government

     As of 1981 Japan was divided into forty-three rural prefectures (ken),
two urban prefectures (fu-Kyoto and Osaka), one district (Hokkaido), and one
metropolitan district (Tokyo). These jurisdictions were subdivided into
cities, towns, and villages; Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and other large cities were
subdivided into wards (ku), which were further split into precincts (machi or
cho).

     Each prefecture or district had a governor and a unicameral assembly;
both were elected by popular vote every four years. All prefectures and
districts were required by national law to maintain departments of general
affairs, finance, welfare, health, and labor. Departments of agriculture,
fisheries, forestry, commerce, and industry were optional, depending on local
needs. The governor was responsible for all activities supported by
prefectural funds that were collected through local taxation as well as for
funds made available to his jurisdiction by the national government.

     Relationships between the governor and the prefectural or district
assembly were mutually restraining. The power of the assembly to pass a vote
of no confidence against the chief prefectural executive was balanced by the
governor's power to dissolve the legislature.

     Cities, like prefectures and districts, were self-governing units and
were administered independently of the larger units within which they were
located. In order to become a city, a town or village had to have at least
30,000 inhabitants, 60 percent of whom were engaged in urban occupations. It
was also required to have appropriate commercial facilities, and 60 percent of
its buildings had to stand within the urban core. City government was headed
by a mayor who was elected for four years by popular vote. A city assembly,
having varying numbers of representatives according to population, was elected
at the same time. In large cities like Nagoya, Yokohama, Fukuoka, and Kobe, as
well as Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, each ward elected an assembly, which in turn
elected ward superintendents.

     The terms machi and cho designated self-governing towns outside the
cities as well as the subdivisions of urban wards. Like the cities, each had
its elected mayor and assembly. Such a town could be formed by the
incorporation of a large village or the merger of neighboring villages.
Villages were the smallest self-governing entities in the rural areas, often
consisting of a number of hamlets (buraku) containing several thousand people
connected with one another only through the formally imposed framework of the
village administration. The principal village official was the elected mayor,
who administered assorted local projects with the village council, both being
elected every four years by popular vote.

     Beneath the village in the rural areas and the ward in the cities were
systems of "neighborhood self-government" consisting of chokai or burakukai,
which were subdivided into several smaller units consisting of twenty or
thirty adjacent households, called han. In prewar Japan, these units were
useful for purposes of social control, and although they did not in 1981 have
a formal, legal status, they continued to serve as the focus for local
community activities in many areas. Han have served as conduits for government
notices, and their members have engaged in cleanup, fire prevention, crime
prevention, and garbage collection activities. Leaders of han and chokai often
have had great political influence on the local level, and have been usually
rather conservative (see fig. 11).

     Taken as a whole, local governments have not been as autonomous as the
law authorized them to be. Local initiative has been often stifled because of
inadequate resources and the dependence of local entities on the financial
support of the central government (see Fiscal Policy, ch. 4). Local officials
have found that they spend most of their time administering the policies and
projects of the national ministries. In the 1970s, however, the election of
reformist mayors and governors in many prefectures and cities heralded a
change in the relationship between local governments and the center, one in
which the former struggled to be more independent (see The Opposition Parties,
this ch.).

The Electoral System

     The electoral system in late 1981 was based on the Public Offices
Election Law of 1950, as amended, and the Local Autonomy Law of 1947, as
amended. There were three types of elections: general elections to the House
of Representatives held every four years unless the lower house was dissolved
sooner; elections to the House of Councillors held every three years to choose
one-half its deputies; and local elections for offices in prefectures, cities,
and villages held every four years.

     Elections were supervised by election committees at each administrative
level under the general direction of the Central Election Administration
Committee. This central committee was appointed by the prime minister on the
advice of the Diet; local committees were selected by local assemblies. The
minimum voting age was twenty years, and a voter had to satisfy a three-month
residency requirement before being allowed to cast a ballot. For those seeking
office there were two sets of age requirements: twenty-five years of age for
admittance to the House of Representatives, to the assemblies in the
prefectures, cities, towns, and villages, as well as to the mayorship in
cities, towns, and villages; and thirty years of age for admittance to the
House of Councillors and to the prefectural governorship. Candidates for
office were required to file with a local election committee. Campaign tactics
and finances were subjects of detailed and restrictive legislation, but
complaints about election irregularities were not infrequently heard.

     The 130 electoral districts of the House of Representatives elected three
to five representatives, depending on their population; the one exception was
the district comprising the Amami Islands, south of Kyushu, which elected only
one man to the Diet. Successful candidates were those who won at least the
fifth largest aggregation of votes in a five-man district, the fourth largest
in a four-man district, or the third largest in a three-man district. Voters
cast their ballots for only one candidate. In House of Councillors elections,
the prefectural constituencies-forty-seven in 1981 including Tokyo and
Hokkaido-elected from two to eight councillors, depending on their population,
and each voter also cast one ballot for a candidate in the national
constituency. Representation in the House of Representatives and among the
councillors who were elected from the prefectural constituencies was based on
population alone; the purpose of having a national constituency was to have a
nongeographical basis of representation, consisting either of persons of
outstanding talent and reputation or of the representatives of important
national interest and opinion groups that might not be represented through
district elections alone.

     The apportionment of election districts in late 1981 reflected the
structure of the population in the years just after World War II, when only
one-third of the people lived in the urban areas and two-thirds in the rural
areas; in the three decades since then, in the wake of rapid economic
development and urbanization the proportion has shifted to over 78 percent
urban and 22 percent rural. This has led to a serious underrepresentation of
urban voters, because no reform of the districts has been undertaken. The
number of ur