How is it possible for democracies to effectively tackle crisis in general, COVID-19 pandemic crisis in specific? This is one of the most pressing but formidable challenges public policy studies as a trans-discipline is now facing. It goes without saying that institutional design/redesign for enhancing the possibility of utilization of every relevant expertise in the policy-making process is of vital need in order for democracies to effectively tackle crises that are wicked in nature―being characterized by deep uncertainties, complexities, and the serious conflict of values―and ensure a sustainable future. What is further required of democracies, lest they should degenerate into sheer tyranny of myopic mass, is the existence, and widely acknowledged authority, of quality political leaders or “central minds of government” (Dror) endowed with the robust will and capacities for skillfully utilizing and staging relevant experts, thereby weaving a better future.

People almost all over the world have been forced to live more or less with Corona for the last seven odd months. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and its casualties vary from country and country. The type of political regimes, be they liberal democratic or authoritarian, does not seem to make that much difference in this respect. What seem to us by far the most critical element, besides political culture, working environment, and the way of life (especially social distancing), is the “style”―or, more accurately, “quality”― of leadership. The kind of leadership we Japanese need most now is the very opposite of Prime Minister Abe’s leadership (or absence thereof). What is most required of national leaders in times of crisis are: (1) having an unshakable belief that the task to effectively tackle crisis should not be totally entrusted either to the market mechanism or to the consensus (compromise)― building mechanism of democracy, but primarily rests with those in government; (2) the determination to take the initiative in persuading a wide range of political actors, including politicians endowed with formal power for policy-making and high-ranking bureaucrats endowed with formal authority for policy implementations, to support government actions for tackling crisis; (3) the determination to invest a critical mass of resources and efforts sufficient to effectively tackle crisis; (4) the will and capacity for promptly adapting to changes in the policy environment and newly discovered facts; (5) will and capacity for systemic thinking; (6) the quality crisis communication skills; (7) the will to achieve accountability, that is, to perform their political duty to the best of their ability with clear and evidence-based explanations.

The year “2020” will be remembered as the year the world faced the spread of cornavirus. Our daily lives have changed drastically, as well as the conventional wisdom, and a “new normal”, clearly different from the previous life style, is required. Indeed, various aspects of society could not escape change. With the advent of cornavirus disease (COVID-19), the new phenomenon that humankind has experienced, is truly a public problem. To solve it, it is necessary to take measures through public policies. Therefore, COVID-19 was included in the research area of public policy studies, and it was positioned as a new research theme. This paper aims to consider what kinds of viewpoints are necessary to deal with COVID-19 in the public policy studies. Further, it focuses on the “first wave” of the infection spread in Japan from January to May 2020. The paper proceeds with discussions from two points: a policy process theory approach and a comparative politics approach. In that sense, this paper will play a role in extracting issues when we research about COVID-19 and public policies.

This article aims to explore the outlook of effective control measures against infectious disease with the case of COVID-19 from international politics perspective, focusing on relationship among the US, WHO and China.

The conflict between the US and WHO over travel restrictions has escalated due to multiple factors: politics and science divided about the effect of travel restrictions; WHO’s insufficient leadership; and the US-China rivalry.

When it comes to the US-China rivalry, the competition between different types of political regime, democracy and authoritarianism, has an important implication for control measures. Since domestic control measures often include’ strong measures’ which entail restrictions on individual freedom and rights, it could be particularly difficult for democracies to decide whether to adopt such measures as effective ones. Some studies imply, however, that strong measures are not always effective. Stringency and effectiveness of measures are distinct from each other, so we should not presume they are essentially equal.

The conclusion is that two things are reQuired for effective control measures to be realized: the first is to strengthen WHO’s function and power to ensure good coordination between politics and science; secondly, we must evade a premature assumption that strong measures are always effective and give much thought to scientific judgment on this issue. What the international community needs now is a stronger WHO rather than strong measures.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading worldwide. Even now, there is no sign of the end of the infection. In Japan, the number of infected people is increasing, and the Japanese government takes various measures such as an emergency declaration. Among them, the role of local governments in dealing with residents is emphasized. In this paper, while referring to the new influenza response in 2009, this paper discusses future issues for local governments regarding COVID-19. As a result, it was found that cooperation with medical institutions is a factor that enhances the medical system of local governments. It shows that it was possible to deal only with the new strain of influenza.

From the analysis of local governments at the time of the new influenza, this paper clarify the issues that should be examined in the future, that is, the cooperation between basic municipalities and medical institutions, and extracted the responses of local governments.

This paper aims to identify the merits and demerits of “problem redefinition” in the policy process and propose a “legal approach” as a policy design theory that can overcome the demerits of problem redefinition.

“Problem redefinition” is the intentional manipulation of policy problems to achieve smooth policy formulation and implementation. Considering policy design studies, we define “problem redefinition” as one form of a policy mix of procedural informational and other tools. “Problem redefinition” can reduce the cost of consensus building and make policies more acceptable. However, it makes policy goals unclear and disturbs the democratic control over policy design activities.

To overcome the demerits mentioned above, the study proposes a “legal approach” to the problem redefinition. The legal approach has two processes; namely, the legislation and administration processes. First, the legislation process explicitly combines policy goals and tools in legal documents. Next, the administrative process implements policy design actions to solve policy problems through the application of laws. This paper argues that using “problem redefinition” as a policy technique is justifiable only in the administrative process. Furthermore, the technique should be available within the legal requirements for policy purposes and executive authority given in the legislative process. Under our model, policy designs involving “problem redefinition” are democratically controllable and available as a linear problem-solving model.

How has local government behavior changed since delegation of authority, and what factors have influenced it? For a better understanding of the impact of decentralization, it is important to analyze changes in local government performance. This is also a crucial factor in the quality of local welfare services. However, these issues have been ignored in previous studies of decentralization focusing on welfare expenditure or policy outcomes, as well as on studies of longterm care policies that emphasize socioeconomic background.

This article analyzes the ex post controls implemented by each government designated city in Japan (seireishiteitoshi) on service providers before and after devolution (2012), using Japanese long-term care as the empirical setting. After confirming the actual situation of each city before and after the transfer of authority, this article examines the relationship between organizational restructuring and the result of the ex post control using the difference-in-difference estimation method. This allows us to examine the changes in local government that previous studies have overlooked. In addition, focusing on observable aspects other than government expenditures, such as administrative behavior, is also expected to overcome case selection bias.

Analysis based on the original panel data of each city for a 10-year period (2007-2017) shows that local governments that underwent internal reorganization are more active than those in other cities. This finding suggests one aspect of the missing link between macro-level institutional change and micro-level policy outcomes, and provides some clues on the impacts of long-term care insurance reform.

This article reconsiders a policy process of Kashima Development in high growth period. Kashima Development is a monumental project in Japanese local development policy. Previous researches indicated that the power of local governor, central government, and central business affect this project. However, previous researches did not find out a critical factor in the process. If researchers could not explain it, we cannot understand Japanese local development policy through Kashima development. Therefore, this article tries to explain the case by analyzing contains focusing on something that previous studies missed.

As a result, this article clarifies three important historical facts. First, this article clarifies that central government formulated a plan of Kashima Development and local government could not formulate it in 1950s. Second, this article clarifies that the National Field-agency played a critical role in each part of policy process instead of local government. Third, this article clarifies that local government interpreted their condition realistically and partly practiced well in whole governance.

According to the facts, this article reconstitute the view of Kashima Development. Specifically, this article depicts Kashima Development that was a mixture process of National Project and complemental local governance by a National field agency and a local government.

This paper explores why Japanese public procurement authorities tend to restrict the number of bids during competitive bidding. It demonstrates that this practice can be explained as a strategy to ease authorities’ search for a satisficing best bid.

In Japan, public procurement reforms have progressed since the 1990s. Authorities have improved the competitiveness of the bidding process for public works. However, the average number of bids per competitive bidding event for public construction works ordered by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism decreased annually after 2005, which appears that the competitiveness of the bidding process has been kept low. Why do authorities restrict the number of bids even as they attempt to enhance the competitiveness of the bidding process? What, if any, are the positive aspects of restricting the number of bids? This paper considers these points from the perspective of the transaction costs that authorities must bear when they operate public procurement systems; previous studies have often ignored this, focusing instead on the benefits (e.g., the economic efficiency of the winning bid) of increasing the number of bids.

Public procurement can be regarded as a decision-making activity wherein authorities decide which contractor should receive a certain construction contract. In this context, authorities seek low-cost, high-quality work. Considering authorities’ bounded rationality, it is too costly for them to evaluate trade-offs between their values and determine the best balance between them.

However, considering each value separately in a pre-selected order (quality first and price second) reduces the information costs of decision-making. This eases authorities’ search for contractors who offer satisficing low-price and high-quality work; this search usually occurs in the following manner. First, authorities restrict the number of bids by establishing the qualification criteria. These are based on contractors’ past performance or their ability to prevent less skilled contractors from participating in the bidding process. Then, contractors who have passed this first stage submit competitive bids, and authorities accept the most economical bid. This process was tested by regression analysis using publicly available data regarding public construction works ordered by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

Accordingly, restricting the number of bids is a strategy that should reduce the transaction costs that public procurement authorities bear when they operate public procurement systems and pursue both low-cost and high-quality work.