Designing the Fiscal Future: Intergenerational Justice and Public Debt in Japan and the UK

Many democratic societies are ageing rapidly. As populations grow older, public budgets come under increasing pressure, and decisions about public debt, taxation, and long-term investment raise difficult questions about fairness between generations. Younger citizens often have limited influence over these choices, even though they will bear many of the long-term consequences.

This project explores whether new forms of public participation can help address this problem. It focuses on Future Design, an approach developed in Japan that asks participants to take the perspective of future generations when discussing policy choices. Research suggests that this method can encourage longer-term thinking and more sustainable decisions, but it has rarely been studied outside Japan.

The project will examine how Future Design has been used in Japanese local governments, particularly in areas such as budgeting and long-term planning. It will then compare this experience with the United Kingdom, where youth parliaments and youth councils provide formal channels for young people's participation but often have limited influence on core policy decisions. This comparison will help identify different ways democratic systems try to represent future interests-and why some approaches are more effective than others.

The John Fell Fund will support targeted groundwork for a larger research programme. This includes analysing Japanese cases in depth, working closely with leading Japanese researchers and practitioners, and conducting exploratory interviews in the UK. The findings will be used to advance an academic paper and to prepare a competitive application for major external funding.

Overall, the project aims to contribute to debates on democratic reform, intergenerational fairness, and sustainable public policymaking, while strengthening the University of Oxford's research on institutional change and innovative research methods.