Creation of the "Public Space" by the Voluntary Sector : Sociological Research of Public Sphere Created by Citizens.

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The main theme of this research is how the citizens can create the public sphere in their society together with the government. The government has usually occupied the public sphere by now. But after the 1990s, we found a new tendency in the pubic sphere, that is the Non-profit Organization (NPO) has started providing the public service officially and networking each other. In order to specify who have made this tendency and how it has been realized, I focus on four points as follows ;1) A NPO support center is one of active supporters of the public sphere for citizens.2) A way of expanding the public sphere is to develop partnership among government sector, business sector and voluntary sector.3) A NPO support center is situated at the center of three sectors to make partnership.4) The goal of activities of NPO support center is to realize a sustainable community at the local level and a sustainable civil society at the national level.I published three articles on the social role of a NPO support center and its developing processes. I would like to analyze two patterns of partnership on the next stage of my research. The one is partnership from the top (as a social policy of the government), and the other is partnership from the bottom (as a request from the grassroots). As for the former, I have already researched on the local strategic partnership and the community strategy at Reading Borough in England on October - November 2004, and as for the latter, I have already gathered much information about local community buildings in Tumago, Kyoto, Kanazawa, and Kamakura. I referred to the research in Kawagoe 2003 in this report.