『現代社会の危機管理』―現実となった危機社会にどう立ち向かうか―

抄録

In our contemporary society, the concept of " Crisis Management" is frequently used in various contexts from the nuclear warfare, regional conflicts, terrorism, product tampering, to financial crisis of individual citizen. However, it is true that there are growing threats to our society caused by the collapse of Cold War structure, drastic technology innovations, Globalization of Economy, transformations of society, and environmental-natural disasters. We are sure to be heading to the Crisis Society where fundamental social factors and structures will be yielding crisis factors in every part of our society. Japan is not an exception of Crisis Society. On the contrary, it is typically emerging in the society which has enjoyed rapid and constant economic growth throughout 1970s and 80s. There are a number of reasons why the concept of Crisis Management and actual efforts for it are not accepted by the public and realized in government ,private enterprises and to individuals. Some may attribute this absence to the cultural background of Japan, but actual causality is more complex and deeply imbedded in institutional framework of social systems in Japanese society. Although Japan has already confronted a number of crisis situations such assecurity issues in international relations in Asia, financial crises of banking institutions, Great Hanshin Earthquake, E-coli Bacterial infection, collapse of educational system etc... the acceptance of the concept among Japanese population is still limited. The author of this article is try to analyze and elaborate the factors whichhinder the perception and efforts of crisis management in Japan , and to propose a set of policies for improving the situation in order to coping with the coming crises to our society.