Municipal Bureaucratic Drivers of Mini-Publics: A Case Study of Municipalities in the Tokyo Area

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.OECD records show Japan has the highest number of deliberative mini-publics hosted in municipalities among OECD countries. Our research delves deeper into the policy dynamism of mini-publics in Tokyo-area municipalities, where official mini-publics by municipal governments started in Japan. Several cities continuously use mini-public endeavors to formulate plans, performance reviews, and screen municipal projects. Our collaborative research has revealed that the foundation of mini-public participation and its proliferation is rooted in the bureaucracy’s aspiration to broaden participation and articulate citizens’ diverse needs. The collaborative governance structures, including the co-commissioning and co-designing process of such initiatives, help suppress the emergence of consultative or deliberative authoritarianism with the vitality of civil sector organizations that would partner with local governments. At the same time, we uncovered evidence that municipal bureaucracies strive to enhance their autonomy in implementing policy, leading to the extensive use of random selection–based and expression-oriented participation methods not designed to show collective judgments. We also found that performance review activities through mini-public initiatives are utilized by directly elected mayors and policy management departments to exert control over service departments and as political tactics to legitimize their administration and its policies and projects. The municipal bureaucracy’s responsible norms have facilitated the implementation of mini-public initiatives in the Tokyo area. However, if the bureaucracy neglects to consider a process for ensuring accountability, the negative aspects of consultative or deliberative authoritarianism may emerge. Recognizing and mitigating such authoritarianism risks will be essential in future mini-public practices, even in a polyarchy society.