Hybridity in the Public Sector—Comparing Development Features in Municipalities in Japan and Norway

ABSTRACT

The theme in this article is managerial or administrative changes in municipalities seen from the perceptions of citizens. It is asked what characterize these changes, whether they are showing an interrelated and hybrid pattern, and whether the perceptions are varying depending on individual demographic characteristics or contextual factors related to their communities and the country they are living in. The data used are from surveys in Japan and Norway in 2015–2016. The main results indicate that the change or reform measures are indeed interrelated and hybrid. They do not vary much related to individual characteristics, except for political attitudes but more so related to the size of their municipalities, year of local residency, and local political activities. Japan and Norway have also marked different profiles regarding the main perceptions of the citizens, reflecting major structural and cultural differences.

KEYWORDS:

• Hybridity
• local administrative change
• citizens perceptions
• Japan
• Norway

Notes

^1. For instance, Shizuoka Prefecture began examining total quality management (TQM) in 1994 and introduced a basic QC tool in 1997.

^2. A post-New Public Management (NPM)-inspired merger process is currently going on in the Norwegian municipalities, which will probably bring the number of municipalities down to about 70.

^3. See https://ourworldindata.org/trust and https://www.indy100.com/article/uk-trust-government-edelman-report-data-statistics-survey-2017-7535346.

^4. Post-NPM and Open and Participatory Government (OPG) may seem to overlap somewhat, but OPG and the related questions represent more of the input side of public decision making, while the questions representing post-NPM are more about the output and implementation side.

^5. Regression analysis using an ordinary least squares method was also implemented. The results were basically identical to those of the probit model. See appendix Tables A-1 and A-2.

^6. In the case of OPG1, there is a negative correlation with the country variable (p = .085 < .1).

^7. The Gini coefficients of Japan and Norway in 2012 were .33 and .25, respectively (OECD, 2016).

^8. More than half of the municipalities in Norway have fewer than 5,000 residents (Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation, 2014). In Japan, by contrast, the municipalities with fewer than 5,000 citizens amount to 16% of the total (MIC, 2016).