This course aims at giving the overview on institutions and functions of the Japanese Local/Prefectural Government. This course clarifies the following points: 1) Institutional and functional comparison on the Local Government in the world: Federal System versus Unitary System of Government and the local decentralization of the government in Japan, 2) The local community and interest groups in Japan, 3) Citizen participation and governmental information disclosure, 4) Local governmental structure of Japan; The Governor, Mayor and the prefectural/local assembly, 5) the local administration: policy innovation, policy planning and administration, and performance evaluation and restructuring of the policy. 6) Special topics such as administering large urban cities, disaster management, administrating broad area of a region . This course is given in Japanese.