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This article examines the impact of Japanese local government's initiatives for promoting the protection of foreigners' rights. Evident in this study is the premise that local government is the single most important factor for promoting foreigners' rights in Japan.

The purpose of this article is to examine the implications for welfare state retrenchment of central-local financial relations. In the post-war period, welfare state expansion has been a dominant theme in the development of central-local government relations in advanced industrial democracies. By the 1980s, however, nearly all OECD member countries had resorted to deficit financing as stagnant tax revenues combined with political pressure for increased public services. Faced with the urgent necessity of fiscal reconstruction, conservatives in advanced industrial democracies have favoured cutting public services throughout the 1990s. As always in times of retrenchment, elected officials have needed to win the goodwill of voters and interest groups for these unpopular cutbacks. There is no doubt that the politics of retrenchment is distinctively different from that of growth. Despite this new stage in the development of the welfare state, few systematic attempts have been made to analyse the impact of retrenchment politics on central-local financial arrangements. This article contributes to the new debate on comparative theories of retrenchment by analysing the impact of welfare state retrenchment in the context of Japan's recent fiscal reconstruction.

Examines the implications for welfare state retrenchment of central-local financial relations. In the postwar period, welfare state expansion has been a dominant theme in the development of central-local government relations in advanced industrial democracies. By the 1980s, however, nearly all Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) member countries had resorted to deficit financing as stagnant tax revenues combined with political pressure for increased public services. Faced with the urgent necessity of fiscal reconstruction, conservatives in advanced industrial democracies have favored cutting public services throughout the 1990s. As always, in times of retrenchment, elected officials have needed to win the goodwill of voters & interest groups for these unpopular cutbacks. There is no doubt that the politics of retrenchment is distinctively different from that of growth. Despite this new stage in the development of the welfare state, few systematic attempts have been made to analyze the impact of retrenchment politics on central-local financial arrangements. Contributions are made to the new debate on comparative theories of retrenchment by analyzing the impact of welfare state retrenchment in the context of Japan's recent fiscal reconstruction. 8 Tables, 38 References. Adapted from the source document.

Analyzes the impact of retrenchment politics and strategies on central-local financial arrangements and fiscal reconstruction, focusing on Japan's social welfare system.

Since the end of World War II, the ever-increasing role of government in advanced democratic nations has resulted in a massive organizational growth in the public sector. The impact of the welfare state provides an explanation for changes in traditional patterns of central–local government relations. The era of the welfare state has witnessed the rapid emergence of an intermeshed system of making and implementing policies, which necessitates integration between central and local government.