This paper reviews how mass publics as a political actor and their preferences and will emerge from certain theories of policy processes, despite traditional views of theory in political science, such as pluralism, which concentrate on political elites under representative democracy. Focusing on the scope, views of democracy, and relationship between “social process” and “intellectual process” in policy processes within such theories, I consider how studies of agenda setting, policy formation, and policy making have treated political thought and behavior in people in general, and in particular how the policy feedback approach more positively develops the research agenda. In terms of public policy, many previous studies direct attention to it as a dependent variable. The policy feedback approach, however, insists it is an independent variable. It argues that public policy works as an institution, and thus policy design is an important influence over time. This approach asks how public policies are likely to affect contemporary public life through the cognition of mass publics. Understanding these arguments and their implications is helpful in conceptualizing public policies themselves, political participation, and the role of government.

Is a recent series of more harshly punitive (genbatsu-ka) legislation in Japan regarded as the result of “penal populism,” which would mean that criminal policy unduly reflects public opinion according to civil emotions demanding reinforcement of “law and order?” While much research in the context of the sociology of crime has been based on "penal populism" theory and has indicated the political factors of criminal policy, political scientists have been quiet concerning this policy area. The purpose of this paper is to show the political mechanism of the recent, more harshly punitive legislation from a political scientist’s point of view. The paper analyzes punitive criminal policies that research in criminal law regards as harshly punitive legislation using a typological analysis that adopts two axes. One is the level of issue salience, and the other is a conflict between political parties. The paper then traces the legislative processes of the Juvenile Law and the Law against Child Prostitution and Pornography that have multiple lawmaking processes in the period of the analysis and characteristics related to the typology. Through the analysis, the paper argues that “penal populism” theory explains only the salient part of the recent punitive legislation such as the revision of the Juvenile Law of 2000, which was passed in the context of a series of atrocious juvenile crime cases, and that the framework of “low-salience policymaking,” in which policymaking is delegated to bureaucrats as the public has little interest in it, explains another large part of it. This argument suggests that the punitive legislation in question in Japan is not only the result of “penal populism” but also “penal harshness without public opinion.”

Citizen satisfaction index is common tool for Japanese municipalities to grasp citizen needs in order with the feedback to decision making process. It is a crucial concern how increases satisfaction by improving service performance and also how boosts the performance by the improvement of public official’s attitude. Many municipalities assume that citizen satisfaction index increases correlatively according to improvement of service performance that is led by the improvement of official’s attitude. We argue a growing literature about outcome and driver of citizen satisfaction. However one issue for assessing the relationships is the lack of concern about nonlinear effects of performance and attitudes. Satisfaction studies in marketing field have revealed nonlinear and asymmetry relationships between performance and satisfaction, and satisfaction and loyalty. Thus, this study explores the relationships between official’s attitude, service performance, and citizen satisfaction in consideration with nonlinear effects by using data of Tokyo residents. The results show that in the people of the two poles of service performance, who judge both high and low performance, the predicted values of the nonlinear models are more correct than those of linear models. Namely, the linear model has underestimated a change rate of satisfaction in the low place of performance, and has overestimated it in the high place of performance. The results also identify the policy targets and how to deal with them in order to maintain and improve satisfaction.

There are few studies on the relation between policy evaluation and the will of the people. But they are related. But both are related as affecting public policy and public policy making systems. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between policy evaluation and the will of the people. There are two types of policy evaluation method. The first type is a type that tries to clarify the value of policy, and cost benefit analysis is a typical method. The second type is a type to clarify the program theory of public policy, to evaluate its necessity and effectiveness, and program evaluation, performance measurement, and budget screening are representative methods. Regardless of which of these two types, the function of policy evaluation has been thought of as providing information useful for the formation of the will of the people. Recently, however, there are several policy evaluation systems that local governments in Japan are likely to be oriented towards policy evaluation based on the will of the people. In this paper, we will take up three such systems and clarify whether they are policy evaluations based on the will of the people. The conclusion of this paper is that they can not be said to be a policy evaluation by the will of the people.

In most contemporary democracies, showing the maximum respect for the “will of the people” in the sense of “policy preferences of the citizenry” is widely acknowledged to constitute the ultimate rationale for, as well as the sine qua non of, a ‘good’ public policy; those endeavouring to design, decide, and implement policies incompatible with the will of the people are normally condemned for their ‘arrogant’ elitism. Why is it that those who dare refuse to endorse the existing policy preferences of the majority of voters are destined to be so harshly criticised? Should policy theorists and practitioners always revere Vox Populi (the voice of the people) as Vox Dei (the voice of God)? The aims of this article are, first, to critically examine the major institutional devices and analytical frameworks thus far widely utilised for measuring and identifying the will of the people; and, second, to consider if and to what extent the will of the people is to be taken seriously in policy processes.

With regard to public policies, unlike marketable goods and services, those who do not pay costs may still enjoy their benefits. Thus results the classic “free-rider” problem. Most people have a natural tendency to take advantage of an opportunity to free-ride to seek the largest possible political rents. We tend to inflate our policy demand to a level we might not hold if we actually had to pay for policy costs. As a result, demand and supply might be reaching equilibrium at some expanded level, which can no longer be supplied at the very costs people are aggregately willing to pay. Economists' approach to discover/identify the ‘real’ (not-inflated) policy preferences of the citizenry through the observation of consumers’ market behaviours is not free from defects, either. Given that public or civic concerns most people have to a varying degree are rarely given due weight in market transactions, paying attention only to the preferences revealed in consumers’ behaviours will inevitably give us a no less distorted image of the will of the people. Policy theorists and practitioners, therefore, must be allowed to disobey the will of the people, be it the one expressed in the political arena or the one ‘discovered’ by economists, when they have good reason to do so; when, for example, they have good reason to believe that the policies they advocate are expected to enhance not only the long-term interests of the citizenry but also thewell-being of future generations. (408 words)

In Japan, some ministries are responsible for development of each industry. For example, Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for development of the food industry. The Ministry of Economic, Trade and Industry (METI) is responsible for car industry, steel industry etc. Even Ministry of Finance is responsible for development of alcohol industry and tabacco industry(I called these ministries “the industry ministries”). They are responsible for not only development but also some environmental laws about each industry (e.g. recycle) in corporate with Ministry of the Environment (MOE). It can be pointed out, that it is less efficient than only the MOE is responsible for them. In addition, environmental regulation can be weaker, if it is regulated by the "industry ministry". However, there are such laws regulated by industry ministries. Why?

Therefore, first I checked the discussion of Reorganization of Cabinet-level ministries and agencies around year 2000. At that time there is the basic law about reorganization. The law contained the basic line of the reorganization. It says also each ministry should not be in charge of regulation of each industry and development of the industry same time. Therefore I tried to find the reason in the discussion of the national diet when each environmental law about water/air pollution, recycle and ozone depletion is suggested. The discussion pointed out that the Japanese government persists that the technical knowledge of the industry ministries is needed in these fields. Finally, I discuss, that whether the technical knowledge is really used in these fields. My conclusion is that, there is the case which can be said “No”. Because, in each industry ministry for example, METI, there is the environment division, which does not have relation with each industry. Environmental division in METI is responsible for some environmental laws in METI. Environmental division in METI cannot be said, it has technical knowledge about each industry. When METI wants to use its own technical knowledge about each industry, each industry division has to be in charge of environmental laws. There is an inconsistency between the reason the industry ministry is responsible for environmental laws, and the organization of the industry ministries

“Core City” and “Special City” systems came into use during the “Promotion of Decentralization” period in the late 1990s. These systems subdivided the Japanese metropolitan areas for the first time since the creation of the ordinance-designated city system in 1956. In Japan, large city systems are institutionalized based on the scale and administrative authority of the municipalities. Therefore, a core city and special city can be distinguished based on their differences in the scale and administrative authority. The specific circumstances of municipalities naturally affect the process of transition to large city systems without regard to the method of these systems. Local governments without political obstacles, however, handle the transition to large cities in the same way that they handle other administrative measures: in a practical manner.

The author conducted a questionnaire survey on the transition of cities to the status of core or special cities, with a focus on the administrative departments of five core cities (Koriyama City, Utsunomiya City, Maebashi City, Takasaki City, and Koshigaya City) in East Japan. The questionnaire consisted mainly of administrative questions from four perspectives, based on the process of the transition of municipalities to core or special cities. This paper attempts to microscopically compare the internal administrative correspondences of municipalities on the transition to core city or special city status by using answers provided by government officials.

The results show that the local governments of each of these cities have similar office procedures for the transition of city status. Each of the municipalities of these five cities evaluated the policy effects and agendas of transition from an administrative viewpoint. Although the focus on these cities was limited to local circumstances, this paper concludes that the cases of transition placed an emphasis on administrative procedures.