The Political Leadership of Mayors in Japan - - Examining the Results of a Nationwide Survey of Mayors-

NIRA RESEARCH REPORT January 2022 The Political Leadership of Mayors in Japan - Examining the Results of a Nationwide Survey of Mayors- 14 January 2022 Nippon Institute for Research Advancement The rapidly accelerating aging and decline of Japan’s population, combined with climate change, and digitalization are forcing major policy shifts in the ways that government is administered and community d. [...] Unfortunately, the record of mayoral leadership and achievement in Japan, has thus far failed to leave a positive impression, and this is reflected in the lack of meaningful scholarship on the realities of mayoral leadership within the country. [...] Policy Emphasis and the Need for Political Leadership in Decision Making • The greater the emphasis mayors place on a given policy the more likely they are to emphasize the necessity of their own political leadership and decision making. [...] Figure 3: Personalities of Municipal Mayors vs the General Public (Average) Figure 4: Risk Appetite of Municipal M ayors vs the General Public Note: Distribution of responses to the risk appetite question are on a scale of 0 (not at all willing to take risks) to 10 (very willing to take risks.) 5 Copyright Ⓒ 2022 by Nippon Institute for Research Advancement This is a translation of a paper origina. [...] Figure 5: Identifying the Leadership Style and Traits of Mayors Note1: The objectives of the leaders were categorized based on how they strongly they identified with the following two statements: "I want to make drastic changes to the organization" and "I want to make deliberate changes to the organization, step by step, over time.” For both statements, respondents were asked to select from a valu.