Development and Social Impact of Welfare NPOs under the Public Long Term Care Insurance Law

《非营利组织法》(1998)和《公共长期护理保险法》(1999)促进了日本非营利组织的迅速发展。本文讨论了这种情况发生的原因和方式。在考察了拉尔夫·克莱默关于志愿组织的理论、定义和功能分析之后，我对福利非营利组织的功能进行了分类。它们是：(1)先锋功能；(2)促进者/倡导者；(3)价值守护者；(4)服务提供。然后，我将这个分类应用到“日本的护理非营利组织(根据公共长期护理保险法定义为提供护理服务的非营利组织)”。关怀非营利组织具有克莱默理论的典型特征和功能。为什么会在福利和公共长期护理保险领域出现这种情况？笔者认为，大多数成功的护理非营利组织早在《非营利组织法》和《公共长期护理保险法》之前就已经开始为社区老年人提供志愿护理服务。他们出现在日本法定的社会福利制度之外，并以回应社区中未得到满足的需求而闻名。他们形成了不同的组织特征和突出的领导风格。因此，如果机构和法律基础设施已经建立，关爱非营利组织将在未来承担新的角色。我还讨论了非营利组织目前在日本面临的问题和挑战。比较美国非营利组织研究论文的兴起，笔者忽略并讨论了福利社会学在这一领域的研究议程。

Nonprofit Organization Law (1998) and Public Long Term Care Insurance Law (1999) have stimulated the rapid growth of Nonprofit Organizations in Japan. This paper discusses why and how this took place. After examining the theory, definition and functional analysis by Ralph Kramer on Voluntary Organizations, I developed a categorization of welfare NPOs' functions. They are (1)vanguard function, (2)improver/advocate, (3)value guardian and, (4)service provision. Then I applied this categorization to the "Care Nonprofits in Japan (defined as NPOs providing care services under the Public Long Term Care Insurance Law)". Care NPOs have typical characteristics and functions of Kramer's theory. Why has this happened in the field of welfare and Public Long term Care Insurance? My view is that most of successful Care NPOs have begun providing voluntary care services for the elderly in community before NPO law and Public Long Term Care Insurance Law. They emerged outside Japanese statutory Social Welfare system, and have had reputation for responding to unmet needs in the community. They developed different organizational characters and salient leadership styles. Therefore, if the institutional and legal infrastructure had established, Care NPOs will assume new roles in the future. I also discuss the problems and challenges the NPOs currently face in Japan. Comparing the rise of research paper regarding NPOs in the US, I overlook and disoiss the research agendas of Welfare Sociology in this field.