Introduction
For the Realization of a Sustainable Welfare Society:
The 21st Century COE Programme,
“Studies on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society”
Yoshinori Hiroi
The contemporary world, especially in the most developed countries, is facing an unprecedented structural change: population ageing and population decline as a result of falling birth-rates and rising life expectancies, as well as environmental degradation and climate change. On the other hand, the basic social system, including tax and social security system has been changed little to adapt to these changes. This discrepancy has caused distortions in the pension, health care, and ecological system. Urgent action is required to accelerate a substantial shift from the current social systems, which are based on the assumption of continuous economic growth towards a system that is sustainable in the absence of such a growth.
The Center on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society was created at Chiba University in October 2004 under the 21st Century of Excellence Programme promoted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. In 2002, the 21st COE Programme was established to support the establishment of an international research hub with the aim to enhance world-class university research that can compete internationally through an evaluation system by third parties. The 21st COE committee of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) carries out the evaluation of grants in cooperation with the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation (NISD-UE), the Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan, and the Japan University Accreditation Association.
The main purpose of the Center on Public Affairs under this programme is to establish an educational research hub for creating a "sustainable welfare society" in response to the current social requirements. The concept of a "sustainable welfare society" is defined as a society, in which both individual’s quality of life and justice of resource distribution are realized in harmony with finite resources in a sustainable manner. Until now, “welfare”, i.e. issues regarding the distribution of wealth and “environment”, i.e. issues regarding the gross volume of wealth has been looked at in separate contexts. In this programme, the interactive research between “welfare” and “environment”@will be conducted to realize a "steady-state society" on a global scale by the middle of the 21st century and to achieve distributional justice, which is one of the biggest challenges that mankind has ever faced. This vision can be called an initiative for "global steady-state society” or “global sustainable welfare society" ? to be achieved by the middle of the 21st century.
It is also required to discuss the fundamental question as to what "government’s" or “the public’s” role is in tackling the issue of changing the current socio-economic infrastructure, including tax and social security system. Other questions to be answered include: “Can the public’s role in securing sustainability be induced by a government based on a civil contract?”; “To what degree can “freedom” be limited for the purpose of securing sustainability?”; and “Can raising the welfare level globally be consistent with global ecological sustainability?”
In exploring these questions, the Center will foster collaboration between philosophical / theoretical researchers and experimental / practical researchers. In doing so, the Center will promote “studies on public affairs” as a practical academic field that integrates both “public philosophy” and “public policy”. There are three other elements. The first component is philosophical research looking into the future roles of the public. The second one is comparative historical research that explores alternative social models from both a historical and an international perspective. Thirdly, policy studies that propose concrete policy measures for solving the various problems mentioned above constitute an essential element of such studies.
The resource-intensive economic society that is based on growth can be regarded as an American social model, which relies on “presumably” infinite resources. The Center establishes an international comparative analysis team that will conduct innovative research focusing on Asia, Europe and the Islamic regions for exploring an alternative social model. Furthermore, the Center also launched an educational research hub for strengthening networks with civil society. The conventional style of governance, in which only a central government makes public policies, has recently collapsed in accordance with increasing decentralization and public participation. In a “sustainable welfare society”, contents of “welfare” and “the public good” are to be defined based on the necessity of public citizens and non-governmental organizations to get involved in public activities. In this sense, the programme nurtures researchers who are able to play a role of facilitators for public participation, and to be fully able to understand and harness the needs of citizens and communities.
In this way, the Center on Public Affairs forms a unique educational research hub for the realization of a “Sustainable Welfare Society” through the full utilization of the following innovative approaches:
- “Integration of welfare and environmental policies”;
- “Collaboration between philosophical and experimental researches”; and
- “Direct dialogue and interaction with the civil society”.
In collaboration and cooperation with other like-minded organizations and citizens of the world, we strongly believe that this Center will be one of the vital engines in putting an ideal of creating a sustainable welfare society into practice in the near future.
Program Leader of Research Center on Public Affairs for Sustainable Welfare Society and Professor of Faculty of Law and Economics, Chiba University, Japan |
