ABSTRACT
Japan is often portrayed as a highly centralized state, in which national government tends to dictate policy to the regions (Johnson 1995). This view has been contested, for example by Muramatsu Michio (1997), whose reassessment of relations between central and local governments lays particular stress on the importance of welfare programmes as manifestations of that relationship (1997: 90). This study of recent homeless policy broadly supports Muramatsu's position on Japanese-style governance: here is an awkward issue that the central government has traditionally been more than happy to leave to cities and prefectures to sort out, but which now demands a national response.
