Reconsidering the Concept of Civic Participation in Japan: Social Control Theory and Public Sphere

Abstract

The debates on civic participation in Japan should be reconsidered. Above all, those debates in public policy studies share a simple view about the mass society. The meaning of “civil society” has developed complicatedly in the field of the social theory. This paper intends to bring a practically applied theory of civic participation, criticizing ideological views.

The main interest of public policy studies is how the government and civic deal with the social problems. But the researchers of civic participation have not to paid attention to criminology (especially on the social norms). This paper focuses on the “social control theory” in Makoto Hougetsu (1998). Hougetsu explains the social control in terms of the symbolic interactionism. Social control works through the formal or informal institutions, which are mainly based on each individuals’ self-control. Therefore, actors can change institutions by reconstructing “universe of discourse” in everyday life, which can at last lead to a policy innovation.

When we solve social problems, we try to change a certain position in various social forces. This view is superior to that of ideological analysis. Charles Tittle (1995) suggested the “control balance theory” to integrate criminology. The main point of this theory is that deviant behaviors occur when a person is put in too little or too much controlled condition. In order to obtain a control balance, we need to reconstruct our networks by connecting various forces. Therefore, we can say that this theory closely links to the reflexivity of “public sphere” as Habermas or Giddens point out.

The major contents of this paper are as follows:

(1) to criticize the civic participation debates in Japan,

(2) to introduce the social control theory,

(3) to bridge control theories in sociology and public policy studies.