ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with both the historical origins and the processes of political development and change in making and reorganising a local government system. In the postwar period, just as in the Meiji period, Japan experienced the radical reorganisation of local communities, again due to an external factor. The Meiji Restoration abolished the feudal domains which had existed as the multifarious centres and drew a boundary around their frontier areas. The Meiji local government system was repeatedly modified up until the end of World War II. Local community leaders, automatically designated as local Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA) leaders, as usual tended to represent their own local interests rather than to support the IRAA popular mobilisation campaigns. After World War II, the Allied Occupation carried out drastic reforms of the Japanese local government system. In Japan, a 1973 policy decision to dramatically increase social security benefits had critical implications for the current and future management of fiscal policy.
