Em’power’ing chihō?: The Adoption of the SDGs Framework Its Consequences on Local Governance

Since 2015, the UN-sponsored Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a dominant policy framework in Japan. Its adoption has favored the strengthening of international partnerships and has influenced trends in policymaking domestically, in the so-called regions (chihō) particularly with regards to initiatives at the urban planning and management level. The SDGs framework and its standardized measuring indicators have in fact come to encompass previously devised policies in respect of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-based ecologically sustainable urbanism (smart city). Considering these facts, what makes a city smart today? How do previously widespread ideas on smart cities (SCs) interact with new frameworks such as that of the SDGs? How, in other words, do international commitments affect local policymaking? This article will offer a preliminary multilevel analysis focusing on both national and local policymaking level to show how the SDGs framework has become all-encompassing and comprehensive. Furthermore, the adoption of said framework appears consistent with long-standing national level policies intended to foster local government (jichitai)’s autonomy and financial self-sufficiency. With the adoption of the SDGs framework, jichitai have increasingly leveraged on their capacities to (a) use a common language (that of the SDGs) to comply with the central government’s directives; (b) create a place identity through the implementation of specific policies in respect of technology or welfare; and (c) foster partnerships with private actors.