KOMMUNALE GEBIETSREFORMEN DER HEISEI-ZEIT UNDLOKALE IDENTITÄT: DAS BEISPIEL DER KOMMUNEARITA-CHŌ

Japan witnessed a boom of municipal mergers between 1999 and 2006. Duringthat period, the number of municipalities was reduced from 3,232 to 1,820. TheGreat Mergers of the Heisei Period, as they have become known, took place withina framework of extensive decentralization reforms in which the central governmenttransferred many administrative tasks to local governments, but failed to also transfera greater degree of financial autonomy. This contributed to the deterioration ofthe fiscal situation of many municipalities, which therefore became more susceptibleto the central government’s financial incentives for the promotion of municipalmergers. Critics of the mergers suspected that municipalities, through the mergers,would lose their local identity. However, the exemplary case study of the merger oftwo towns in Saga Prefecture, Arita and Nishi-Arita, shows that identity was only amarginal issue during negotiations concerning the merger. Nevertheless, somemeasures had been undertaken prior to merger by both the municipal governmentsand the merger council to create a sense of a shared identity by emphasizing thesimilarities between the municipalities and their residents. Whether a corporate localidentity can be achieved in the future is not yet clear, but at the beginning of 2008the residents were still emphasizing the differences between the two towns, one ofwhich is dominated by the ceramics industry, the other by agriculture....