Social Movement and Public Policy

Abstract

Social movements are collective actions of various civil organizations whereby they compete against each other over which direction to lead the society. Such organizations engage in social movements with their own missions and vie for the recognition of their superior “public-ness” with the local government or with other organizations.As symbolized by the emergence of the “new social movement, ” the adequacy of “public-ness” - which has long been largely the preserve of governments-has been called into question. Governmental failures marked by fiscal crisis and excessive regulation have further shaken the credibility of governments as the dominant providers of public services. The new concept of “civil public-ness” indicates that “public-ness” has now become a subject over which local governments and civil groups compete with each other. Meanwhile, similar challenges face the public policies that have been implemented by local governments to put the concept of “public-ness” in practice. With the diversification in the organizations working in the field of public policy, nonprofit organizations are also expected to collaborate with local governments and play a role in deciding how public policy should be implemented. In this sense, the concept of “coproduction” between local governments and civil groups, which has been a subject of discussion in local governance, is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, it is also true that the idea of promoting “coproduction” between these two parties has drawn considerable criticism since there is an opinion that local governments are promoting “coproduction” in a self-serving way. Therefore, it is important to redefine “coproduction” from the viewpoint of the theory of the “new social movement” to figure out the best form of “coproduction.” This paper also examines “coproduction” from the viewpoint of “competition in fragmentation, ” a concept used in sociology, and discusses the need to redefine “coproduction” as “historic action” whereby local governments and the public compete in an atmosphere of friendly rivalry toward the formation of a better society.