The problem of participation to local politics has been paid attentions widely, often with the aim of reforming local autonomous body and establishing community democracy. It is well-known that the importance of citizen movement, as an effective form of participation to local politics, has been pointed out strongly.
This essay concerns citizen movement as a problem in studying community power structure with a view to understanding corresponding relationship between power and local autonomy. It is without saying that there are two important problems in Japanese local politics which have been produced from rapid industrialization since W.W. II. One is the dependent attitude of local governments to the central government in both political and economic aspects. The other is the subordinate attitude to big enterprises. In addition to them, we must pay attentions to other important factors which have introduced big change to local political structure. They are the structural change of local society under the pressure of industrialization and urbanization and some of its resulting problems in local politics such as disintegration of community organizations and reformation of community leaders.
I take some problems of citizen movement in view of changing community politics stated above. The headings of my problems are as follows.
(1) Participation to Local Politics and Citizen Movement.
(2) Organization of Citizen Movement and Function of Leadership Groups.
(3) Formation of Community Organizations and Citizen Movement.
(4) Community Democracy and Role of Citizen Movement.
