Localization and Acceptance of Deliberative Mini-Publics: A Case Study of Municipalities in Tokyo Metropolis

Abstract

From the late 2000s onward, municipal governments in Tokyo have expanded citizen participation and discussion initiatives involving the selection of citizens at random from the Basic Resident Ledger. Such initiatives have been applied not only at the ordinance-making and planning stages but also at the evaluation stage, where there are few examples internationally. This approach has taken the form of citizen deliberation meetings, which are an implementation of German planning cells localized for Japan. As this type of citizen participation based on random selection has spread, elements of citizen deliberation meetings have been adopted by citizen workshops conducted by local governments since the 1990s. However, the emphasis on proposing judgments through “deliberation-with” and “deliberation-within” shifted to a focus on articulating various opinions. The municipal bureaucracy's willingness to utilize citizen deliberation meetings as a means of public hearings seems to have facilitated this transformation and led to its widespread use. We consider this to represent the emergence of a second localization stage, along with its use in the evaluation stage.