Democratic control and effective management of city-county governments

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25380178
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Politics
• Research Institution: Aichi University
• Principal Investigator: Noda Yu 愛知大学, 地域政策学部, 教授 (20552839)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: シティ・カウンティ統合 / 地方自治 / 二重行政 / 民主主義 / 効率性 / 政府規模

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research reveals the change of democracy and financial efficiency in city-county consolidation governments by investigating city-county consolidations in the U.S. and other cases. In successfully consolidated cases, city-county governments achieved economic development and improve financial efficiency by eliminating duplication of public services. On the other hand, in order for improving democracy, bigger sized governments through consolidation advanced the efforts to gather citizen needs in divided areas. In addition, this study clarified that the efficiency has a function to widen services in the whole area fairly. These findings are crucial to consider the reformation of regional government in Japan.

Free Research Field

政治学・行政学