Local factors sustaining co-production: Two case studies from the city of Yokohama, Japan

ABSTRACT

In an era of austerity, co-production involving local government and community groups has taken on much greater significance worldwide, including in Japanese local government. However, the nature of local co-production differs widely across Japan, ranging from bona fide cooperation between municipalities and voluntary groups to de facto outsourcing of local government functions in pursuit of cost savings. This paper seeks to add to the scholarly literature on community co-production by examining two case studies in Yokohama City. In particular, we seek to show how “path-dependency” and local social capital play a significant role in the success of co-production in local government.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-production
• community groups
• local government
• urban policy
• path-dependency

Acknowledgments

The authors greatly appreciate the valuable comments from the editor and the two anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. There are many definitions for path-dependency. One major meaning is “history matters” which we adopt in this paper. Although it is a powerful tool to explain many contemporary socioeconomic phenomena, we contend that a trajectory free from path-dependency should be possible in the future. Another meaning is that an accidental past event can result in a widely accepted contemporary standard, as is in the case with the arrangement of a keyboard (the so called “QWERTY” theory), but this definition does not apply to our case in this paper.

2. An example of international discussion on the significance of civil society activeness or the “thickness” of social capital in securing social contributions by general citizens is found in Samuel Bowles’s The Moral Economy (Bowles, 2016). In this work, Bowles illustrates how incentive policies can produce the positive effect of “crowding-in” (increase) of “social preferences” (like volunteering) and the negative effect of “crowding-out” (decrease) of these social behaviors based on recent findings in the behavioral sciences, stressing the importance of civil society. While Bowles does not offer many specific examples of good public policies or what he calls “Aristotle’s legislation” to prompt more “social preferences”, we believe that co-production is a good example.

3. The source of this information is the Website of the City Government of Yokohama: https://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/city-info/yokohamashi/tokei-chosa/portal/tokeisho/02.html.

4. The nature of co-production projects between the local government sector and the civic (voluntary) sector can vary widely depending on the degree of the initiative taken by either of the two sectors as well as on the characteristics of the participants from the civic sector. The “bona-fide” type here refers to a case where the participant from the civic sector is a purely nonprofit, volunteering entity and the local government behaves in a helpful manner to optimize its social contribution. An example of the opposite type might be a case where the participant from the civic sector is a profit-making business corporation or a case where a local government behaves too dominantly vis-à-vis a civil sector participant.

5. For the complete list of 936 facilities, visit the website of Yokohama City. URL: https://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/business/kyoso/public-facility/shiteikanri/shiteikanrishaseido.files/0040_20190805.pdf.

6. In addition to these 11,114 NPOs, 39,926 NPOs are designated by 47 prefectural governments. In total, there exist 51,040 designated NPOs operating in Japan as of November 30, 2020. This data is from the website of the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. URL: https://www.npo-homepage.go.jp/about/toukei-info/ninshou-zyuri.

7. Yato (or ya) is almost synonymous with satoyama, but it is a local term used in the southern part of the Kanto region including such prefectures as Shizuoka, Kanagawa and Tokyo. It refers to a small valley with rice fields, small rivers and biotopes, and local forests as a source of firewood as well as residential houses. Yokohama City stands out for its large number of yato; there is a total of 307 localities whose place names include the word yato or ya in the city (Website of the City Government:

https://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kurashi/machizukuri-kankyo/kankyohozen/kankyo_kyoiku/yato.html).

8. The sources of this information are the websites of OoizumiTown:

http://www.town.oizumi.gunma.jp/01soshiki/06jyumin/01jyumin/data/R202gaikokujinkou.pdf and http://www.town.oizumi.gunma.jp/01soshiki/06jyumin/01jyumin/data/0203jinkou.pdf.

9. Diamond Princess, a large cruise boat from the U.S. with a capacity of 2,706 passengers and 1,100 staff, received international attention as the second epicenter of the new coronavirus in January and February of 2020; the boat was anchoring at this pier.

10. Shishigaya Park is classified as a “Citizens' Forest” that began in 1971 during the administration of Mayor Asukata. The City Government had designated a total of 47 places (about 547 hectares in total) to this forest conservation program as of April 1, 2019. The City currently has a contract of ten years with each of the landowners who will benefit from an exemption from property tax and urban planning tax (both are municipal taxes) if the criteria stipulated in Ordinance No. 47 of June 1973 (and the revised version of June 25,2010) are met. For details, see the website of Yokohama City URL=https://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kurashi/machizukuri-kankyo/midori-koen/midori_up/1mori/forest/shimin-mori-seido.html.

11. Afuso Michie received the highest award of the Brazilian Government, Ordem de Rio Branco, in 2018 for her commendable social contribution activities in Tsurumi and other regions of Japan to help Brazilian residents, as well as the Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation in 2019 for her contribution to strengthening the Japan-Brazil relationship. ABC Japan now helps not only Brazilians but other nationalities too. One successful graduate from the Free School for high school students is a Chinese who entered a local private university, graduated successfully and has recently joined Yokohama City Government as a full-time civil servant.

12. To understand why Yokohama City, especially Trusumi-ku, can be considered a community that stands out in terms of social capital in spite of a lack of clear statistical data, the following three points should be noted. First, the fact that Yokohama City is not a member of the Conference of Cities with Clusters of Foreign Residents should be understood as indirect evidence. We speculate that thanks to strong support from the civic sector, City Hall might have felt no need to join this association in 2001 when it was launched. Second, in a community in another prefecture with co-production projects with weak social capital, the foreign residents’ community is starting to form a ghetto, but this phenomenon is non-existent in Yokohama. Third, the selection of Ms. Afuso (ABC Japan in Tsurumi) for top awards in both Brazil and Japan as explained in Note 11 may indicate that the activity level of this NPO is significantly higher as compared to other cities in Japan.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keiichi Yamazaki

Keiichi Yamazaki is a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics, Faculty of International Social Sciences, Yokohama National University, Japan. He focuses on urban policy, local public finance and co-production in Japan, Brazil and other Latin American countries. His coauthored papers have also been published in Local Government Studies, International Journal of Public Administration and Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration.

Brian Dollery

Brian Dollery is Professor Emeritus in UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale, Australia. He has written extensively on local government, especially on local government structure, finance and reform. Recent books include Local Public, Fiscal and Financial Governance: An International Perspective (2020), Australian Local Government Reform (2015), Funding the Future (2013) and Councils in Cooperation (2012). Over the past 3 decades, Brian has worked with a large number of local councils across Australia, mostly on financial sustainability and structural reform.

Yukio Kinoshita

Yukio Kinoshita is an Associate Professor of farm management and agricultural economics at the Faculty of Agriculture of Iwate University and Adjunct Associate Research Professor at UniSA Business at the University of South Australia. His research focuses on agricultural economics, environmental policy and farm management in Japan and other developed countries. His most recent articles include “Local co-production and food insecurity: leveraging institutional advantages of partner organisations” in the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration (2021).