Kobe University Monograph Series in Social Science Research

International society led by the United Nations has been working to improve and standardize every country's post-disaster recovery policy. In particular, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted at the UN World Conference at Sendai, Japan, in 2015 declared the slogan "Build Back Better (BBB)." In this book, the BBB is considered an essential common criterion for evaluating recovery status, but BBB variations in each individual country's context are pursued. In contrast to a governmental approach to recovery evaluation focusing mainly on physical structures and macro indicators, this volume focuses more on the affected societies, communities, economies, and especially victims' livelihoods. The authors are academics from diverse fields, including governance, law, economics, and engineering, so that the book is truly interdisciplinary.

This collection results from an international collaboration by scholars from "disaster-affected universities" in global-scale mega-disasters occurring in the Asian region in recent decades. The universities include Kobe University in Japan; Iwate University in Japan; Syiah Kuala University in Aceh, Indonesia; Sichuan University in China; and the University of the Philippines.

COVID-19 has changed not only human lives since the beginning of the year 2020, but systems of human society as well. Legal measures have been employed in every country to mandate the state’s control of human behavior in order to stop the pandemic. But the mode of legal control has differed by country, showing different results in terms of constraining the spread of infection. While the behavioral restrictions continue, the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic have been causing another catastrophe, particularly in the most vulnerable sectors of each society. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are typical representatives of such vulnerable groups, compelled to assume the economic burdens of the pandemic that have been shifted from the larger economic actors that hold the advantage in contractual negotiations.

Statistical data on infection status have revealed a great gap between countries, such as European nations reaching the level of several thousand deaths per one hundred thousand population, while most Asian countries have maintained a level of one or two digits. Even though COVID-19 affects the whole world, the redistribution of risks in the pandemic is a goal to be pursued in the socio-cultural context of each society.

This book explores the law and social changes in Asian countries under the impact of COVID-19, with a particular focus on the social relations surrounding the SMEs. These form the center of contractual relations between various socio-economic actors and at the same time, are a direct counterpart of the governmental SME policies, peculiar to Asian interventionist governments. A comparative approach is taken, using the results of interview surveys based on structured questions conducted via research collaboration between the contributors from Japan as well as other Asian countries.

This book focuses on the political economy behind innovation in China's new industrial sectors, particularly the effects of policies and government regulation in the absence of the rule of law. In its analysis, the book aims to elucidate the mechanisms that generate innovation from multiple perspectives while utilizing insights from political science and law. The analysis in this book focuses on the following three points. First, by examining Guizhou Province's Big-data industry promotion policy, "import substitution digitization" policy, and government intellectual property strategy, we seek to empirically clarify the extent to which Chinese government industrial policy has stimulated innovation. Next, we examine in detail the issues surrounding the "rule of law" in China regarding introducing anti-monopoly laws for digital platform companies and developing the intellectual property court system. Third, it focuses on the role played by local governments in industrial policy, including the impact of industrial guidance funds on the efficiency of the regional financial sector and the impact of local bond issuance on the effectiveness of resource allocation among regions.

The purpose of the survey was to evaluate the status of human life recovery of disaster-affected populations and communities in Asia in the long term, for the ultimate purpose of reviewing and comparing the outcomes of different prioritizations among the plural goals of disaster recovery. Through such a review, the authors intend to induce policy implications to guide a better recovery process with lesser impact on the human life recovery in the future disasters that we humans are destined to meet. The target areas are 16 districts in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures in Japan, all typical areas seriously affected by the 2011 tsunami and subsequently came under the governmental construction works for the safety, as well as three villages in Banda Aceh and its outskirts in Aceh Special Province, Indonesia,; two districts in Mianyang city in Sichuan, China which were targetted by intensive reconstructon works conducted by the coupling assistance; and two village communities in Tacloban, the capital city of Leyte island hit by the 2013 Typhoon Yolanda. To realize the concurrent attainment of both safety and livelihood in the recovery planning, this joint survey has identified common issues for a successful cooperation between the local government and communities through the inclusive participation of various institutions representing the variety of interests in each community.