無党派知事下の地方政府における政策選択

1990年代以降における知事要因と議会要因

抄録

We have seen an “independent wave” in prefectural politics with a string of electoral victories by non-partisan gubernational candidates since the early 1990s, though more prefectures still have governors with party affiliations. Our research interest in this article has been to determine how and to what extent this new phenomenon has led to policy changes. Also, we have examined the roles of legislatures because Japanese prefectural government has adopted a dual representation system.
Our findings can be summarized as following: First, the size of government has appeared to be the focus of Japanese local politics since the 1990s. The chief executives face a policy choice between big government with local public loans or small government with fiscal conservatism. While independent governors tend to prefer fiscal conservatism, conservative governors try to maintain big government. Second, pork-barrel programs are the focus of expenditure policymaking. Legislators have an effect in this regard.