Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/70301

KEYWORDS : Local Revitalization Policy;Ehime;Kagawa;central/local government;inter-governmental relations

This paper follows our study on the impacts and meanings of the recent ‘Local Revitalization Policy’ in Shikoku. Although we present complementary evidence based on our survey conducted last year on the Ehime and Kagawa Prefectures of Shikoku that validates the findings of Murakami et al. (2017), we find that Shikoku and Hokkaido both emphasize, in their respective strategies, economic policy (industry revitalization, and job creation), and social policy (child-care support, and immigration and settlement support). However, Shikoku places more emphasis on the latter because of a precedent partnership and ‘division of labour’ with prefectures that have mainly committed to the former. Further, results assert that (1) the ‘national’ policy, which targeted sharply shrinking areas, also lead local governments, which had not worked so hard on population decline, to recognize the seriousness of the problem; (2) Shikoku understood this seemingly ‘spectacular’ and ‘flattering’ policy that local governments saw too late rather calmly, because, unlike with Hokkaido, Shikoku did not have big expectations, and therefore, were not too disappointed with the policy; and (3) such a sudden policy implementation left bitter feelings and busy workloads for these years, and, ironically, an expectation for continuing support to deal with inter-governmental competition in a context of economic decline and population shrinkage.