On April 1, 2023, the Personal Information Protection Law was revised.The Personal Information Protection Law was applied to local governments and the Personal Information Protection Ordinancgovernments andHowever, in order to retain their own efforts, local governments enacted ordinances to enforce the Personal Information Protection Law.In this paper, we analyze the ordinances for enforcement of the Personal Information Protection Law in local governments, and were able to identify various characteristic provisions.

This study employed principal component analysis to categorize regional structures in the Tokyo metropolitan area, using 22 geographical and social indicators across 30 regions. “Regional blocks” defined in the Heisei-era merger promotion plans served as the analytical units. A cluster analysis of the first principal component classified these blocks into four types—central cores, sub-central cities, functional cores, and peripheral hubs—indicating a hierarchical metropolitan structure. The potential for wide-area collaboration within each type was then explored. The findings suggest that functional cores should promote policy coordination by leveraging existing resources, whereas peripheral hubs should address challenges independently and build sustainable networks. Overall, regional blocks can serve as foundational units for wide-area cooperation and offer an alternative to mergers. Future research should apply this framework to other regions to deepen our understanding of inter-municipal collaboration.

As a municipal official of Nisshin City, I was involved in formulating the “Nisshin City Farmland Bank System Implementation Guidelines,” based not on the provisions of the Agricultural Land Act, but on the concept of perpetual leasehold rights as stipulated in Article 270 and subsequent articles of the Civil Code—thus establishing a system that did not entail ownership rights. This initiative, developed in the context of decentralization, can be regarded as a groundbreaking effort uniquely undertaken by a local government. However, in recent years, there has been a shift back toward centralization with the enactment of the “Act on Promotion of the Intermediate Management of Farmland” (Act No. 101 of December 13, 2013), under which farmland banks are now established at the prefectural level. This report, driven by the concerns outlined above, reexamines the historical development of laws surrounding farmland ownership in Japan and explores potential solutions to various issues related to the effective utilization of farmland.

Proportional representation is an electoral system that promotes candidate diversity. As seats are allocated according to the number of votes received in this system, it is compatible with parity and quota systems. Although there are various ways of allocating seats in proportional representation systems, these systems are designed to reflect the percentage of votes received as accurately as possible in the percentage of seats. Traditionally, due to the quantitative dominance of men, plurality systems such as FPTP have not been considered to promote diversity, let alone be an obstacle to it. However, the introduction of a gender-pairing system for the 2015 French departmental elections showed that full gender parity can be achieved in a plurality system. In this study, we present a case study of the “binôme” gender-pairing system and contribute to the discussion on electoral systems that promote diversity.

In public assistance administration, frontline workers (caseworkers) are afforded considerable discretion, indicating that how policies are actually carried out in the field largely depends on how these caseworkers perceive and interpret the inherent significance of their duties. From the perspective that policies should be formulated and implemented by taking into account the process by which staff interpret their work, this paper analyzes how caseworkers construct and transform that interpretation, using a “memoir” written by a caseworker as a case study. The findings reveal that the “sense of purpose” and “sense of fulfillment,” which are noted to help alleviate stress, emerge through a process that shifts negative emotions—specifically “anger”—into a positive feeling of “fulfillment” during their everyday tasks.

This study examines how to foster connections between urban consumers and rural areas in Japan, focusing on consumers’ intention for farmer-consumer relationships, village visits, and roadside station visits. Using survey data from 331 purchasers at sales stands in an urban area, the study examines the relationship between consumers’ intention and factors affecting the intention. The results showed that knowledge of roadside station, desire for farmers’ information, telling and collaboration positively influenced all intentions. The results also revealed a sequential relationship: connection with farmers drove village visit intentions, which in turn drove roadside station visits. This sequential relationship was not significantly affected by prior experience with roadside station. The findings suggest tailored communication is needed: for new consumers, focusing on information and collaboration is key; for those who are aware but not visited, visit experiences are important; and for existing visitors, loyalty programs help retain interest.

The purpose of this study is to grasp 1) the actual state of the secretariat systems of district councils of social welfare nationwide, 2) the actual state of small-area plans formulated primarily by district councils of social welfare, and 3) the actual state of resident participation methods in decision-making process for formulating small-area activity plans and promoting small-area welfare activity programs, as well as clarify the relationship between secretariat systems, small-area plans, and resident participation methods. The analysis of a survey revealed no significant correlation between the “secretariat systems” and “formulation of small-area activity plans”. Furthermore, no significant differences were found between groups in the implementation rates or types of resident participation methods according to “secretariat systems”. However, significant differences were found in the implementation rates and types of resident participation methods implemented between groups that “formulated” small-area welfare activity plans and the groups that “did not formulate” them.

The purpose of this study is to point out flaws in Kyoto City's local disaster prevention plan from the perspective of the way of dealing with foreign tourists in case a Nankai Trough Earthquake happens, and to clarify the availability of acceptance and the actual status of evacuation shelter operations based on the results of a questionnaire research administered to Jisyubousaikai, local voluntary disaster prevention organizations. In addition, I also considered the issues that may arise when those evacuation shelters accept foreign tourists and the possibility of resolving these problems by getting the cooperation of foreign students.

In Japan, the national and local governments have implemented various policies to support new farmers in response to the shortage of agricultural workers. This study examines the development of policies implemented by the national government, prefectures, and municipalities to support new farmers, analyzes the current situation, and identifies the issues.

The research method involved the analyzing articles previously published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries as well as the results of interviews, to examine the trends of prefectures and municipalities based on annual reports published by the National Chamber of Agriculture.

The results revealed that roles are more divided, with the national government providing support in the form of finance and information, prefectures providing agricultural skills, and municipalities providing skills that match local needs and assistance in securing housing.

Many areas of Japan have promoted the sightseeing policies for years. However, that has caused other problems, one of which is called “over-tourism.” Whether an area is negatively influenced by over-tourism depends on the situation in areas, but it is important to analyze that whether there seems to be an indication of over-tourism not only from the aspect of each stakeholder but also from that of macro tourism indicators. In this paper, the situation of Ishikawa Prefecture is analyzed as a case study. The main results say that among four areas in Ishikawa Prefecture, Kanazawa area had many hotel guests and day trippers, and so on. So, about Kanazawa area, more detail analyses are practiced from “Generational Balance Approach” which applies the method of GINI Index analysis. From that method, Kanazawa area had not been the situation of over-tourism as a whole, but some problem-solving approach is necessary promptly.

＊ This study investigates how the two key drivers of sustainable gastronomy tourism—community co-governance and quality-label branding (PGI/PDO, GI)—interact across Richards’ three experiential phases (Experience 1.0-3.0). Fieldwork (June 2024) in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Bavaria, supplemented by tourism and agri-food statistics, identifies three success mechanisms: (i) multi-stakeholder hubs such as the Basque Culinary Center; (ii) label-driven rural homestays embedded in short food-supply chains; and (iii) urban-to-rural revenue recycling via tourism taxes. For Japan, it recommends (a) GI-anchored farmhouse-stay packages, (b) city-level gastronomy strategies modelled on San Sebastián, and (c) overtourism governance redirecting city tourism taxes to rural GT projects.