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環境汚染改善에 있어서 日本의 革新自治體의 役割에 관한 硏究 - Kawasaki(川崎)시의 사례연구 : A Study on the Role of a Japanese Progressive Local Government in Improving the Environmental Pollution - A Case Study of Kawasaki City -

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Authors

이시재

Issue Date
1997
Publisher
서울대학교 지역종합연구소
Citation
지역연구, Vol.06 No.1, pp. 81-102
Abstract
Kawasaki in Japan had been well known as a city of pollution since it had been a center of heavy and chemical industry in modern Japan, and had to care a large number of the victimized. Problems of the pollution began to be dramatically mitigated after a progressive local government inaugurated in 1971. In the 1960"s, approximately 5,000 children and the elder citizens, women were victimized of air pollution, emitted from the large factories such as the NKK(Nippon Kokan Kabusikikaisha), Toshiba, and Ajinomoto. People in Kawasaki organized themselves to counter pollution problems in the late 1960"s, and regional labor union also took up the pollution problems as one of their political agendas.

In the 1971 election, labor leaders and citizens" movement persuaded the Japanese Social Democratic Party and the Japan Communist Party to form a political coalition to defeat the candidate from the Liberal Democratic Party. This political coalition gave birth to the a progressive local government in Kawasaki.

The progressive local government ordered the pollution companies to change the pollution-intensive energy sources, and pushed the companies to install the telemonitoring system to record on-line emission of pollutants. These measures impressively reduced the air pollution in three to five years. The city of Kawasaki concluded an agreement with the polluting companies to prevent the air pollution, which included a strict investigation of the company when a pollution problem occurred. The city government also enacted stricter regulation of pollution. By this new regulation each company was alloted a limit of pollution. The city government of Kawasaki also revised an ordinance for pollution prevention, and enacted an ordinance for the environmental impact assessment. The city government persuaded the polluting companies to donate funds, and set up the Counter-Pollution Assistance Foundation to help the victimized.

This research implies following points in terms of social movement and change: first, the pollution problems could be substantially solved through a progressive political coalition at the level of local autonomy government. On the basis of this political forces, the polluting companies can be changed into pro-environmental ones. Secondly, persistent anti-pollution movement of the local people contributed to politicize the problems of pollution in election campaign. Local people"s movements had been active even before the inauguration of the progressive government, but they made effective use of the progressive political space to conclude agreements for counter-pollution with the polluting companies. Thirdly, the substantial political forces behind the birth of the progressive local government were labor unions. since labor unions had organizational power as well as political funds. Even though the labor movement and anti-pollution people"s movement did not form a direct coalition, they could cooperate each other within the framework of the progressive political space.

In conclusion, this research shows that it is essential to make a political coalition between labor movement and local people"s environmental movement, and eventually to construct a progressive local power.
ISSN
1225-5165
Language
Korean
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/10371/46635
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