Policy Entrepreneurs: How "Ordinary People" Can Change the Rules of Society

There is a fable known among people working on social issues called the "Metaphor of the Drowning Baby." It goes like this.

You are a traveler. During your journey, as you pass by a river, you discover a baby drowning. You rush into the river, desperately rescue the baby, and return to the shore.

When you look back in relief, you see another baby drowning in the river. You rush to rescue that baby as well, only to see yet another baby drowning further across the river.

Eventually, you become so busy rescuing the babies drowning right in front of you that you fail to notice a man upstream who is throwing babies into the river one after another.

This is a fable that illustrates the relationship between a "problem" and its "structure." Every problem has a structure that creates it. While dealing with the "problem" of the drowning baby in front of you, you must also change the structure—the man throwing them in and continuing the tragedy—by stopping him.

Private citizens who approach this "structure" are called policy entrepreneurs. In the United States, people known as Policy Entrepreneurs found non-profit think tanks and other organizations to influence the government and bureaucracy, turning policies into reality one after another.

The term "Seisaku Kigyo-ka" is a literal translation of Policy Entrepreneur. Modern Japan is exactly where these policy entrepreneurs are needed. Why? The numerous government failures during the COVID-19 pandemic. An exhausted bureaucracy. Economic stagnation that could be called the lost 30 years. A continuously declining birthrate and aging population. Rapid technological development and a body of laws that keeps getting older. And the global climate crisis has already begun to bring major flood damage to Japan.

It is plain as day that we are no longer in a situation where policy-making can be left solely to politicians and bureaucrats.

This book introduces the methods of policy entrepreneurship alongside my own journey as a policy entrepreneur. After finishing this book, you might realize, "Wait, changing policy is something surprisingly anyone can do." I want to give you that gift of surprise.

Policy Entrepreneurs: How "Ordinary People" Can Change the Rules of Society

Hiroki Komazaki

Chikuma Shinsho

288 pages, 968 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.