A Turning Point Gaze: The Emergence of Environmental Democracy and the Awakening of Civil Society (April 1995)

A Turning Point Gaze: The Emergence of Environmental Democracy and the Awakening of Civil Society (April 1995)

In April 1995, Japan was in the midst of a post-bubble recession, but in parallel with the search for economic recovery, civil society was maturing and environmental awareness was deepening. The "development-first" values that had supported Japan's once rapid economic growth began to waver, and new ideals such as "sustainable society" and "recycling-oriented society" gradually came to the foreground in the activities of government, local communities, and businesses.

At this time, while the effects of the 1992 Earth Summit (Rio Summit) were still being felt, Japanese local governments were beginning to take concrete measures to address environmental issues in earnest. For example, Chiba City's recycling stations, which are managed together with local residents, attracted much attention, and the city aimed to build a model as a resource-recycling city. In Hadano City, Kanagawa Prefecture, on the other hand, tensions arose between citizens and the government over the construction of a waste incineration facility. As residents voiced concerns directly related to their daily lives, such as health hazards and declining land values, the local government was forced to change its policies from a "persuasion" approach to a "dialogue" approach.

These developments are not simply a matter of recycling technology or facility development. There was the emergence of a new ideology that symbolizes a qualitative change in the relationship between government and citizens. At a time when the importance of "consensus building" in the policy-making process and the concepts of "information disclosure" and "accountability" were gaining ground, environmental issues were no longer merely scientific and technological problems, but had expanded to become social, ethical, and cultural issues.

At the same time, new forms of environmental risk, such as dioxin and environmental hormones, were beginning to attract attention, and citizens were becoming increasingly sensitive to the environment. The composition of policy formation oscillating between scientific uncertainty and citizen anxiety can be seen as the very starting point of "environmental democracy.

In this way, Japan in the spring of 1995 was in a transitional period when the axis of value was moving from "economic efficiency" to "sustainability," and signs of this change were quietly but surely taking hold in the debate over recycling policies and incinerators.