Three Interactive Sections for making Sustainable Welfare Society come true
There are three sections in the Center on Public Affairs to translate its ideals into practice, i.e. the Public Policy Section; the Public Philosophy Section; and the International Public Comparison Section.
I. Public Policy Section (Section Leader: Hidefumi Kurasaka )
Limit of quantitative growth of economy
Since the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th century, the human economic society has traced ever-increasing growth. Both population size and energy consumption amount per capita achieved exponential growth. Usage of fossil fuels, such as coal, petroleum and natural gas sustained such a growth. An energy intensive food production system supported by “unlimited” supply of energy has been sustaining ever-increasing population.
However, large amount of carbon dioxide has been emitted by burning fossil fuels, causing climate change. From 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius increase is projected in the next hundred years. Human economy has never faced this sort of radical environmental change in the precious history. It is, at least, necessary to prevent climate change at the level with which we can cope through the huge reduction of CO2 emissions as soon as possible. In this way, it is high time to rethink the way of economic growth begun and kept since the Industrial Revolution upuntil the present time.
Population decline and Japan
On the other hand, Japan will face population decline in the very near future. The birth rate records the past minimum, and aged population marks the highest level in the world. The population at their working prime has relatively decreased and the balance between pension charge and payout has been lost. Therefore, the current pension system will hardly be maintained. As the next generation will be unlikely to achieve the bigger scale of economy than the previous generation, “payout that was promised in the past” would become a heavy burden on to the economy of the next generation.
“Payout that was promised in the past” is not only for the pension for the aged population and medical expenses. Expenses for renewal and abolishment for buildings and facilities are also regarded as “payout that was promised in the past”. Many buildings and facilities that were build in the high-growth period in Japan need to be renewed or abolished now. As a result, the construction waste is expected to be doubled in the coming twenty years. If the expenses for both the renewal and abolishment of capital assets and infrastructures cannot be afforded, that area will fall into slum, losing city functions.
Economy that does not premise growth
Considering the two stories mentioned above, we have to face up a big issue, shifting from growth-oriented economy into economy that does not premise growth. As examined, resources / energy intensive economic growth is not sustainable. It is also no longer self-evident that scale of economy keeps expanding towards the next generation. However, no more growth-centered economy should not automatically mean decline in the standard of living. Within the framework of steady-state economy, it is required to keep and/or promote human welfare, while reducing excessive loads on the natural environment. In this way, the age of a “sustainable welfare society” where welfare for all is accomplished in harmony with the natural environment has come.
Tasks of the Public Policy Section
In the Public Policy Section, the practical research towards a “sustainable welfare society” will be conducted. There are maily two tasks to be pursued. The first task is to draw a picture of a “sustainable welfare society”. What sort of principles should be appropriated for operating civil economic activities in the sustainable welfare society? How will a sound competition in the market be maintained, while keeping physical scale of economy within ecological limitation? How should a responsibility between generations be shared?
The second task is to elaborate a policy package to achieve “sustainable welfare society”. How should the current tax system be reformed? How should responsibilities of private companies be changed? How should a role of the aged people be? The Public Policy Section will try to explore answers to these questions through a variety of research, study meetings and publications in collaboration with civil society.
Necessity for new behavioral principles
The issues mentioned above will lead us to re-evaluating the current behavioral principles. For example, securing both “freedom” and “equality” may be no longer a “golden rule”. It is crucial to notice that the “waste” is the premise of “freedom”. The space where each can behave freely without violating other’s rights, what can be called a sort of “waste”, is obviously getting smaller. In order to secure “waste”, “freedom” in the meaning of no restriction from the others must be limited. Then, the question is to be raised: How will “waste” and “freedom” in the meaning of no restriction from the others be compatible? The future generation could lose their portion by securing the equality among the members of the current society. How can both intra-generational equity and inter-generational equity be achieved concurrently?
These questions lead us to review roles of government. The main roles of the conventional government were to find effective resource allocation and to promote fair income distribution. However, any government in the future will be given a challenge to secure a sustainable scale both economically and ecologically in addition to these two political responsibilities.
Necessity of citizen’s participation
It is not easy to judge the scale of sustainablity. Carrying capacity of the earth can vary depending on what level of living standard should be based on. If all the people seek for an American way of lifestyle, the carrying capacity could not afford the current population size. It is also difficult to determine sustainability in a given spatial area. For instance, it may not be appropriate for Japan to depend its basic necessities including food and energy heavily on other countries, although complete self-sufficiency cannot be achieved within a country.
The scale of sustainablity cannot be judged based only on scientific knowledge. In setting policy goals, value judgment of an individual member should be examined, and consensus building process between members should be fostered.
With these in mind, the Public Policy Section utilizes an abundant knowledge and approach of public philosophy in policy making, while making much of the process of citizen’s participation. As a part of the 21st Century Programme, this Section will try its best to produce both concrete and attractive policy measures for a realization of a “sustainable welfare society”.
II. Public Philosophy Section (Section Leader: Masaya Kobayashi )
In the “Research Center on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society” that wrestles with oen of the most difficult problem that human begings have ever faced, the Public Philosophy Section is striving for creating a new field of public studies in close collaboration with other sections, i.e. the International Public Comparison Section and the Public Policy Section.
Public philosophy normatively explores an ideal figure of public. It criticizes a tendency of an academic world shifting towards specialization and privatization. Centering around a key concept of “publicness”, public philosophy seeks for a solid basis of any study deserving to this new age. Moreover, in order to make it practically useful and meaningful, public philosophy strives for building a public space through a creation of networks and a renovation of a public world.
For the purpose of tackling these comprehensive issues explained above, this section focuses on such subjects as peace, environment, social welfare and happiness through synthesizing a variety of specialized knowledge including philosophy, ethics, politics science, law, economics, policy studies, and history.
As an academic field aiming at a recovery of publicness against the following three facets of privatization, public philosophy can be defined with the following characteristics:
1. Openness/ Publicness:
Against the current tendency moving toward privatization in our society as a whole, this section aimes at a realization of new publicness in politics, economy, and society. As one of the attempts, this section will try to provide a new concept of a “de-nationalized publicness” as well as a “glocal publicness” based on the public per se, departed from the unitary public idea of “nation = government public”.
2. Practicality:
Against a social privatization of the academic world, the Public Philosophy Section will seek for a creation of social publicness in the academia. To put this into practice, this section will strive to open any academic knowledge widely to the public, presenting it in a way that the general public can easily understand. This section will also try to propose concrete policy measures based on public philosophy for solving actual issues (Making academics public).
3. Comprehensiveness:
Against a privatization of the academics in the form of excessive specialization or isolation among different fields, this section aims to recover the publicness by means of interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach. By breaking down closed practices of each study field, which is a negative aspect of specialized differentiation, this section is making a distinctive effort to form a comprehensive academic wisdom that is useful for solving a variety of actual problems.
The characteristics and the fundamental ideals of public philosophy when this COE Programme was begun are as follows.
1) Rebuilding of “public” based on publicness:
Public does neither mean “bureaucracy” nor “nation = government”. The word “public” should be used as in the context in English and Chinese. In other words, public is to be formed horizontally by people. NPOs / NGOs (intermediate groups) should serve as the leading actor. This section aims to make and propose policy measures based on the above concept.
2) Activating individuals, opening public:
This idea is neither a selfless devotion to his/her country seen in Japan before the WWII, nor the publicless devotion to individuals (“me”-ism). But, it means that each one activates himself or herself (empowerment), thinking and solving public issues relating to the people.
3) Spatial publicness = “glocal” (global and local) publicness:
This means the global as well as local publicness beyond national boundaries without being confined to a national publicness.
4) Publicness in terms of time = generative publicness:
The idea of "generativity" (named by Erickson) that means transcending generations will contribute to achieving sustainability.
5) “Welfare public body” aiming at achieving “public goods”:
This means to consider the distribution of materialistic goods based on the public goods. The purpose of “res publica”, i.e. a public body such as a nation is to establish “welfare society or welfare community”, as it used to be called as "commonwealth = common wealth = common welfare = common welfare body”. This is not limited to materialistic aspect only. It also means that spiritual “good-wealth” should be equal to both “well-welfare” and “wealth”.
6) Practical studies fostered in cooperation between researchers and citizens:
This means that through a formation of a solid cooperation beyond the different position of researchers and citizens, public philosophy can contribute to a society in practice. For this purpose, this section fosters the networking of NPOs/NGOs and researchers.
7) Nurturing public citizens:
It is important for citizens to have public consciousness and policy-oriented thinking in order to become a leading actor, i.e. public citizens. Therefore, this section conducts a civic education to citizens interested including students and staff members of NPOs.
4. Method of public philosophy
There are two approaches in public philosophy. The first one is called as “descriptive or empirical public philosophy” that studies living thoughts among the public historically, experientially, and practically. Second, “normative public philosophy” provides an ideal for a realization of publicness. Both elements are important, and approaching these two methods should be pursued. Descriptive or empirical public philosophy without normative approach lacks purposes and directions like a drifting ship that lost a chart. Normative public philosophy without empirical consideration is blind in surroundings like a troubled ship with a broken measure.
Through diversified activities at the Research Center on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society, the Public Philosophy Section provides concrete policy proposals based on its comprehensive academic research by tying both approaches of public philosophy mentioned above, connecting these approaches with public policies. Through a number of activities at the Public Philosophy Center at Chiba University, the Public Philosophy Section plays a role in collecting needs of citizens, connecting it with education and policy proposals.
Moreover, this section strives for establishing a wide network as well as a meta-network (networking of networks) for researchers and citizens by breaking both the excessive specialization among researchers and rigid boundaries between researchers and citizens, as well as boundaries among citizens. What this section is trying is to realize a prototype of a new approach to “academics” towards the 21st century in various aspects such as research, education and practice. In this sense, it is to be called a trial of “academic reform” for this new era.
III. International Public Comparison Section (Section Leader: Akihiko Amemiya )
The International Public Comparison Section based on the studies on the world history and regions provides an empirical knowledge that can be a clue both for deepening normative analysis on “new publicness” and for realizing such publicness from a policy standpoint. The core of the research is to explore alternative social models that make it possible to keep raising the quality of welfare while conserving the natural environment. At the same time, with the full utilization of the empirical knowledge, the comparative public studies makes the result of the studies on public affairs fruitful and meaningful by pursuing frequent feedbacks and re-evaluation for the normative analysis and political research.
1. “The Great Divergence” and Modern Age
According to Pomeranz, a famous American historian, the flourishing of the western society after the 19th century can be described as “the great divergence” from the human history until then. He pointed out that natural-resource-intensive economic society, based on the usage of coal and natural resources in the New Continent did not appear on the extension of the European history until 18th century. This newly appeared economic society shifted the existing world economy of those days that was labor intensive and natural resource saving as seen in Asia, to the natural resource intensive path, from coal to oil, oil to nuclear energy.
In the world convergence pushed by globalization, the insatiable seek for the natural resource intensive economy is strongly linked with both the accumulation of extreme poverty and the tragedy of wars that is seen typically in Fallujah in Iraq.
2. Politics and Economics of Diversities
However, the convergence of this world also creates an opportunity of diversification, which effects have already been seen. The history before “divergence” is still functioning as a social/economic system in the “old” world, resisting against the pressure of the world convergence, evolving through absorbing such convergence flexibly. That is the reason why the history before the “divergence” is currently re-evaluated. For example, the Ordinance of Animal Protection and the Ban for killing all animals implemented in the Edo Era in Japan are recently revaluated from the environmental standpoint. The agreement for the systematic abolishment of nuclear energy in Germany is derived from the European tradition of strong solidarity among citizens and political participation, which can be traced back to far before the modern history. Civil society is not only seen in the modern history in European societies, but also in non-European societies such as Asia and Middle East, which has developmed in a various way. As seen in the study of the great economic historian, Alexander Gerschenkron, who argued the diversity of economic development, the diversification of politics and economics is highly demanded today. The Recearch Center on Public Affairs needs to play a major role as a research hub in responding to such requirements.
3. Globalization / Informatization and Future of Labor
The issue on both labor and employment is now facing a big turning point in the industrial globalization and informatization. People’s values on the labor have been changed under the downsizing of both private and public sectors together with an excessive specialization of the key sector of labor in each business enterprise. On the other hand, new ways of labor such as non-governmental activities and civic labor, "Burgerarbeit" in Germany, have recently emerged. In this new situation, two questions are to be raised: Will the traditional labor to get income, “Erwerbsarbeit” in Germany, be decreased, as time passes? How can we draw a picture of “the future of labor”? The International Public Comparison Section can bring both a useful viewpoint and knowledge for these significant issues in the studies on public affairs.
4. “Publicness” in the Historical Perspectives
“Public interest” is one of the core themes in the Studies on Public Affairs. The proposition, “Postponing private interest to public one”, is well-known among researchers on the Nazism history. Indeed, economists under the Nazi regime developed a theory on artificial general equilibrium in front of the market-oriented economy that lost the equilibrium by monopoly. Nowadays, “public welfare” has been discussed in various political contexts including the controversial argument on the amendment to constitution. Introducing a viewpoint of international public comparison to the normative analysis of publicness makes it possible to have an adequate sense of the balance in pursuing such analysis.
5. Prolonged Deflation Economy and Exploration of “Neo-Publicness”
Under the prolonged deflation, such “clear” scheme at glance as Keynesism = social democracy = modernization = growth, or anti-Keynesism = anti-social democracy = suspect-for-modernization = anti-growth, has become dominant as a common sense in our society without being noticed. However, this sort of scheme can / should be modified and diversified based on various facts of related facts. The method of international public comparison is useful for these modifications and diversifications in answering to many issues including the following question: How can we draw a scheme of a society that strives to solve a difficult issue of harmonizing welfare with the natural environment under the pressure of globalization? This section will develop its own scheme through its unique public research based on the experiential research. This will lead to a realization of “neo-publicness” in due course.
Activities 2004 (1 Oct. 2004 ? 31 March 2005)
From its inception at 1 October 2004 until 31 March 2005, the Research Center on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society has conducted a number of projects, events and workshops including:
- Organized five international symposiums;
- Organized ten workshops (study meetings);
- Co-organized three international symposiums;
- Published “Journal on Public Affaris”, Vol. 1, No.1 and Vol.1, No. 2;
- Published “Newsletter on ReCPA (Research Center on Public Affairs), No.1 and No.2;
- Published “Annual Report 2004”;
- Initiated “A monthly mail magazine”;
- Initiated “Unviersity Students-Youth Job Creation Project”; and
- Initiated “Sustainable Areas Project”.
The details will be available at the following URL of the Research Center on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society in due course (please refer: http://www.shd.chiba-u.ac.jp/~coe
21/ ).
Section Leader of Research Center on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society and Assistant Professor of Faculty of Law and Economics, Chiba University, Japan
Section Leader of Research Center on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society and Professor of Faculty of Law and Economics, Chiba University, Japan
Section Leader of Research Center on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society and Professor of Faculty of Law and Economics, Chiba University, Japan |
