Abstract
Many local governments have been amalgamated since 1995. This is the Heisei Municipal Amalgamation. It is relevant to the reform of decentralization. The local government has acknowledged how powerful the local autonomy is through amalgamation. Was civil autonomy realized by amalgamation? This paper is a study on the process and result of the civil autonomy at the Heisei Municipal Amalgamation. In the process of amalgamation we have seen a lot of activities and changes such as: many citizen participation cases, proposals for establishment of conference or ordinance, public comments, recall, and citizen referendums. These cases have some problems to work out, for example, legally binding referendums, relations between direct citizen voting and representative democracy system, and formalistic conferences without solving these problems, we can't move forward. Even though we have these problems, the ten years of experience from the Heisei Municipal Amalgamation has stimulated the progress of civil autonomy. Many citizens have taken interest in civil autonomy through this process. Therefore, we can build our experience to innovate the civil autonomy system.
