2025 Volume 32 Pages 54-72
In Japanese local governments, “Same-Sex partnership” has been introduced ahead of the national policy, and “Same-Sex partnership” has been diffused to local governments across the country. However, in most local governments, a “Same-sex partnership” is run as an administrative outline. “Same-sex partnership” is a critical issue related not only to diversity but also to the human rights of LGBTQ+ people, but why are many local governments introducing “Same-Sex partnership” in the form of administrative outlines rather than ordinances? In response to this question, I conducted a questionnaire survey of the departments in charge of 20 pioneering local governments that introduced “Same-Sex partnership” in the early stages and analyzed the factors behind this. The analysis revealed that, despite “Same-sex partnership” being conscious of diversity and internationalism, administrative departments in charge of local governments had paid little attention to precedents outside the country. In addition, it has been revealed that “Same-sex partnership” was not introduced as an administrative outline of the results of compromise in many local governments, and it was found that many local governments had decided to introduce “Same-Sex partnership” based on administrative outlines from the beginning because they were concerned about the difficulty of building consensus with parliaments and members. This is an interdisciplinary study that examines the policy process of “Same-sex partnership” based on findings from previous research and an analysis of the results of a questionnaire survey of local governments that introduced the policy.
