Paper short abstract:

The 2018/2019 immigration reform under an (ethno-)nationalistic Prime Minister like Shinzo Abe is puzzling. This paper analyzes the reform and shows how it was realized through a concentration of decision-making power combined with an ideational window of opportunity.

Paper long abstract:

In 2018/2019, the Abe government introduced a new reform in Japan’s immigration policy, which included two new visa categories and a quota system for non-highly qualified foreign workers and established the Immigration Services Agency (ISA) as new government organization responsible for Japan’s admission and integration policy. This reform is not the big bang in Japan’s immigration policy as it does not imply a sudden deregulation of immigration. Still, the speed and scope of this reform is surprising, especially in view of persistent standstill in immigration policy concerning non-highly qualified foreign workers over decades despite far-reaching proposals and heated debates. That this reform was realized under the leadership of Shinzo Abe, although he has often been described and criticized as an (ethno-)nationalist, makes it at first sight even more puzzling. In fact, since the internationalization of higher education under Yasuhiro Nakason in the early 1980s, no other reform has opened Japan potentially so much to additional immigration like the 2018/2019 reform under Abe. It is not without irony that Abe and Nakasone, of all people, as the two prime ministers said to have the strongest ethno-nationalist convictions in the last 40 years, have opened Japan most to immigration through reforms.

This paper analyzes comparatively the ideational frames and institutional setting of the 2018/2019 reform. In a nutshell, it argues that Japan’s immigration policy is not marked by a dominance of ethnonationalism as often assumed but is characterized by a diversity of ideational frames and institutional fragmentation that led to a persistent standstill over decades. A concentration of decision-making power combined with an ideational window of opportunity in the late-2010s allowed the Abe government to realize of this far-reaching reform.