Public Involvement in Social Policy Reform: Seen from the Perspective of Japan's Elderly-Care Insurance Scheme

Abstract

Japan has undergone drastic demographic changes in the past few decades. To cope with the needs of being an ageing society, the government has enacted a Long-term Care Insurance Law for the elderly that was implemented from 1 April 2000. The new legislation was conceived as a political compromise to appease two strongly opposed forces: reformists and the old guard. In the process of drafting reform, new political players, including ordinary citizens and mayors of small-scale municipal governments, have emerged. Two citizen action groups participated in the reform process, and succeeded in reflecting their preferences in its policymaking. The mayors who supported the new system started reforming social welfare administration systems, challenging traditional local politics. This article focuses on a few of these groups and how they have changed the Japanese political scene. It concludes that their political activities have contributed not only to promoting social policy reform, but also to revitalising politics in this country.