Individuals' range of choices will be assured, and individuals will seek self-realization through affiliation with diverse organizations, networks, and activities. Then, civil society as a better system of governance can be defined in terms of individuals acting on the basis of self-responsibility and various actors jointly creating a new public space in the context of a pluralistic society led by spontaneous and robust individuals.
III. Civil Society Organizations as a Prerequisite of Better Governance
When civil society is defined as a way society is organized in order to pursue a better governance, it presupposes that there is a need to fill a growing space of social needs that can not be adequately fulfilled by public sector. As was discussed before, there has been a growing recognition that nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, or NPOs and NGOs, or volunteers, have a critical role to play. In the case of Japan, through a galvanizing event of the tragic Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in Kobe in January 1995, public attention to civil society organizations surged abruptly and dramatically. This sudden awareness of the value or utility of volunteers and NPOs prompted the government and political parties to seek ways to work with them, while suddenly trying to assist them. A landmark NPO Bill was passed through the Diet in 1999 to significantly facilitate incorporation process of NPOs departing from a traditional approval system where competent authorities have discretional power to grant or not grant incorporated status to nongovernmental organizations. (The same approval system continues regarding incorporation of zaidan hojin or not-for-profit legal person incorporated foundation) Nevertheless, full-fledged development of civil society organizations has yet to be achieved in Japan, as is the case also in most of countries in Asia Pacific, and this may be attributed largely to two factors.
One factor that has constrained a more rapid development of civil society is the relative absence of perspective in Japanese society as a whole to regard civil society organizations or NPOs as an essential requirement for advancement of better system of governance. There has been a failure to promote greater appreciation for the development of civil society itself to be the issue of governance. There indeed is a continuing tendency by the government bureaucrats to "turn to" NPOs, spawning a hierarchical relationship where civil society organizations are reduced to mere subsidiaries of government agencies. There even is a certain ironical development by government agencies to build "civil society organizations" under their control. At the same time, there is a continued pattern of dependence by incorporated nonprofit organizations to depend on subsidies and commissioned work from their competent authorities.
Another constraining factor related to civil society development in Japan is a continuing prevalence of the traditional group approach over individualism. As was discussed before, the state, the bureaucracy, and organizations have always been given precedence and society as a whole has advanced in lockstep. On this question, the aforementioned Prime Minister's Commission on Japan's Goals in the 21st Century asserts that "if the twentieth century was the century of the organization, the twenty first century will be the century of the individual." It further argues that "Individual freedom and empowerment, so far enjoyed by only a handful of people, will be within reach of the great majority. If so, it is all the more important that each and every person firmly establish his or her individuality." Though the Commission report may be regarded to be too optimistic and excessively "visionary," there indeed are signs that such growth of individualism is manifest, above all, among those who are engaged in NPO activities.
