ABSTRACT
Muto Hiromi Municipal mergers were promoted under the Koizumi administration (2001-06), which pushed neoliberal reforms in many fields such as highway management, the postal system, welfare, transportation, and employment, all in the name of ‘structural reform’. Koizumi’s neoliberal reforms called for a change in the style of government in Japan, and this included local authorities. Many smaller local authorities have been pressured into merging, and all local authorities have been pushed to contract out their public utilities. These local authorities have thus taken on a new role, which we examine in this chapter. As a crucial result of these changes, the disparity between the rich and the poor in Japan has been exacerbated, so much so that the phrase ‘disparity in society’ (kakusa shakai) has recently become widely used and discussed in Japan (Tachibanaki 2006).
