후기산업사회 일본의 갈등과 통합 - 地方自治의 視覺과 方法을 中心으로

Abstract

This study is an analysis of the way in which the conflicts and the contradictions of Japanese society aroused during the industrialization process have been changed and developed in the post-industrial society, with special reference to the role 2 nd function of the local autonomy. It also tries to figure out the way in which such conflicts and contradictions have been integrated into the social systems.

In the post-industrial society, the conflicts of the industrial society have become more serious so that social problems such as urban problems, the confrontation between the capital and the labor, the unbalanced development among different areas, and the confrontation between the state and the civil society have been revealed holistically, But, for the very reason, the conflicts tends to be latent rather than revealed.

It was the local governments that had the function of integrating the conflicts in the industrial stage. That is the Reformist Local Governments, formed throughout Japan based on the citizens rebel, functioned as a kind of the Welfare-state. In the post-Industrial stage, the neo-conservatism appeared with its logics of the small government and of the reduction of the welfare budget and the low rate of economic growth could no longer hold the finance, breaking down the Reformist Local Governments. Instead, the integration method by the symbolic operation of neo-conservatism became dominant.

The integration strategy of neo-conservatism appears to be successful in He current flow of internationalization and the information-orientation. But it is different from the substantial prescription for social integration which was adopted in the industrialization stage; mostly it is the ideological prescription based on the symbolic operation with basically unstable function of integration. The political reform of Japan is nothing other than the inevitable consequence of such unstable integration.