As a "function" or "utility" of sports, "symbolism" is just as important as "public-spiritedness." A sports event has a strong, "symbolic function," that invokes a sense of participation among a number of people. In an interview with us, Shizuoka Gov. Yoshinobu Ishikawa spoke of this value of sports:
At the time of the World Cup, a number of citizens voluntarily planned and organized various events. Also, citizens worked together with government officials to jointly organize many events. The World Cup served as a kind of pilot project to see how the local government can and should cooperate with nonprofit organizations or other members of the private sector in coping with various problems in the future. This has been possible thanks to the overwhelming attraction of the World Cup that has enabled a number of people to share the same objectives and goals.
"Voluntary participation," as referred to by the governor is a factor of vital importance. The phrase, "government-led volunteer activities," is linguistically contradictory. In Japan, where voluntarism is as scarce as spirit, culture, and experience, there have been, however, a number of cases in which this phrase could apply. Whether it is for the sake of government or people, how to bridge and coordinate between volunteers who provide services and the recipients of the services can be learned only through experience. Government-led volunteer activities, though it may sound like a joke, should be given certain meaning as a transitional stage leading to true voluntarism.
In this regard, the, "hosting of the World Cup," seems to have provided an opportunity to substantially narrow the distance between the citizens and the government. The fact that all the host local governments referred to, "volunteers," also indicates a certain stalemate in approaching the question of how to foster voluntarism in Japan.
To be sure, the fact that a number of volunteers participated in the hosting of the World Cup is quite an achievement. But how to evaluate this achievement remains unanswered. Also there is the plain fact that no established evaluation method or guidelines exist.
However, none of these difficulties - or reasons why sports is an unfamiliar subject to administration evaluation - do not provide a viable excuse for a local government to ignore its responsibility for conducting ex post evaluation. A certain task being difficult does not means that the task does not have to be carried out. Whatever evaluation method is developed for whatever subject, the method cannot guarantee 100% accuracy concerning the evaluation results. But neither this negates the necessity of evaluation.
