Psychological Foundation on Enactment Process

A Case of the Gender Equality Policy

Abstract

This paper focuses on how Japanese government's new policy on gender equality inherits and transfers to local governments' policies. Among various factors concerning the enactments, psychological processes of the deliberation committee are discussed.
In 1999 Japanese government enacted the basic law for a gender-equal society, which requires prefectural governments make action plans to pursuit its purposes. This law contains not only the ideal of gender-free but also wide and long span economical efficiency.
This gender-equal law also leaded to the enactment of the local laws (Jorei) or the action plans in some local governments. We compared two cases; one which made the law on gender equality, the other didn' t. Through the close examination of the committee proceeding recodes and interviewing, we found their members' values, experiences, knowledge levels, and behavior patterns played important roles to impose the purpose of gender equality policy.
In the case which didn't make the law, the committee members well discussed about the meaning of gender equality policy and ombudsperson system. Although this local government didn't make the law up to now, they tried to make a tailor made plan and policy which are best fitted to this particular city. On the other hand, in the case which made the law, the committee members were not strongly involved to the enactment process. This local government seemed to be more interested in the political and economical factors, though the alternatives tried to make the law with strong enforcing power.
In conclusion, the spirit of Japanese government's gender policy transfers to the local government policies in different ways, because the psychological foundations of committee members are not the same.