Designing critical policy infrastructures by participatory systems analysis: The case of Fukushima's reconstruction

Recent developments in service science and social design have resulted in new policy design methodologies. On the service science side, the concept of co-creation has appeared. On the social design side, methodologies of participatory systems analysis have emerged. Based on these developments, this paper proposes a participatory systems analysis model for public policy design (PSP), a new methodology that employs Bayesian network modelling. We select Fukushima, one of the northeastern areas of Japan most devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake of 11th March 2011, to verify and validate the empirical efficacy of this methodology. The results show that it fosters both creativity and a sense of collaborative ownership of policy design, which are the core values for a better community.