This article analyzes how Japanese local governments decide to terminate policy programs, by examining the experiences of terminating dam construction in prefectural governments. Though Japanese local governments are commonly regarded as subordinate to the central government, they are granted considerable autonomy to implement investment programs. In fact, after the last half of 1990s, many prefectural governments have decided to terminate investment programs, such as dam construction programs which this article deals with.
The author advances several hypotheses that the election system of local governments affects the motivations of politicians to implement dam construction programs, and examines those hypotheses by using the techniques of Event History Modeling. The empirical results of this article suggest that a change of local governor is the most important factor of policy termination and that the local assemblies which tend to oppose to the governor become substantive resistance force against termination. These findings demonstrate that the policy termination is not only economical or technical decision, but highly political decision.
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