As described earlier, large number of NPOs and volunteers, especially young men and women, rushed to the scene of disaster. These young people set aside traditional affiliation of their groups, and came to Kobe as individuals to help victims of the quake. This led to the creation of a new public space for the Japanese, and the sense of public space as an area for opportunity for individual fulfillment will emerge. As the Commission Report asserts, "Empowerment of the individual will catalyze the creation of a new public space, and creation of a new public space will give individuals greater choices and opportunities. This interaction will generate a new form of governance that will elicit individual's latent strengths more fully and expand the frontier of self-realization." NPOs often play an effective catalytic role to facilitate individuals' participation in public space and contribution to public good. Though belatedly, NPOs are playing an essential role in many communities often in partnership with the public sector, not as its subsidiary, to facilitate citizen participation in the political process and in preservation and promotion of public good. Then, civil society as a system of governance in the 21st century will be effectively enhanced by civil society organizations.
Tadashi Yamamoto
President
Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE)
Notes
1 Ignatieff, Michael. "On Civil Society: Why Eastern Europe's Revolutions Could Succeed," Foreign Affairs, March/April 1995, p.128.
2 Wolfe, Alan. "Is Civil Society Obsolete?" The Brookings Review, Fall 1997.
3 Gellner, Ernest. Condiitons of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals, Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1994
4 Nye, Joseph. "In Government We Don't Trust," Foreign Policy, Fall 1997.
5 Salamon, Lester. "The Rise of the Nonprofit Sector," Foreign Affairs, vol.74 no.4, July/August 1994
6 Yamamoto, Tadashi. ed., Emerging Civil Society in the Asia Pacific Community, Singapore and Tokyo: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and Japan Center for International Exchange, 1995
7 Diamond, Larry. "Toward Democratic Consolidation," Journal of Democracy, vol.5 no.3, July 1994
