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Paper short abstract

Why do some Japanese cities hire foreign nationals as public employees while others restrict nationality? We argue larger, wealthier cities mobilize mayoral entrepreneurship and interest groups. Analyzing 840 cities, we find fiscal strength and city size predict openness better than demographics.

Paper long abstract

Despite national government guidance reserving public sector positions involving the "exercise of public power" for citizens, Japanese municipalities exhibit striking variation in openness to hiring foreign residents. Why do some cities maintain strict nationality requirements while others have progressively expanded opportunities for foreign residents across administrative, technical, and specialized positions? This paper argues that policy innovation emerges from the strategic interaction between entrepreneurial mayors and organized interest groups. This dynamic is concentrated in larger, financially stronger cities.

Drawing on Schneider and Teske's (1992) political entrepreneurship framework, we theorize that mayors in larger cities possess advantages for challenging the status quo. Larger cities have more developed advocacy infrastructures, including organizations specifically mobilized around foreign resident rights. Operating most effectively in large cities, groups such as the Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan); the Tokyo Liaison Council for Realizing Foreign Resident Employment in Public Service; and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations have systematically campaigned to remove nationality restrictions. These interest groups can provide entrepreneurial mayors and local councils with important resources that enable change, including interest groups demonstrating political demand for reform, legal advice, and coalition partners. However, smaller municipalities do not benefit from such organizational infrastructure. As a result, mayors in these municipalities face higher costs and greater risks when considering change to the status quo.

Our framework further emphasizes how fiscal capacity enables entrepreneurial politics. Larger municipal budgets create "slack resources"—discretionary funds not committed to fixed obligations that political entrepreneurs can strategically reallocate toward policy experimentation, such as the hiring of foreign nationals. This fiscal flexibility, combined with dense interest group networks, allows entrepreneurial mayors to challenge restrictions on hiring foreign nationals without triggering conflicts over budget.

Analyzing 840 Japanese cities in 1997 and 2020 using ordered logit regression, we find that fiscal strength and city size significantly predict municipal openness while demographic factors show weaker relationships. These findings confirm previous studies that have demonstrated that local governments are important for progressive policy innovation in Japan. Entrepreneurial mayors partnering with organized advocacy movements can lead reforms that challenge assumptions about the role of foreign nationals in Japan.

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Paper short abstract

Research on citizenship has emphasized national and global identities, while local and cultural understandings remain underexplored. Focusing on Japan, this study examines four citizenship identities - Kokumin, Shimin, Koumin, and Jumin - and their relationships with citizenship norms.

Paper long abstract

Studies on citizenship have predominantly focused on how national and global identities, as well as civic and ethnic forms of nationalism, shape various citizenship norms. However, the understanding of citizenship or citizenship identity at the local and cultural levels remains relatively underexplored. This study examines the case of Japan, where understandings of citizenship vary. In Japan, the term “citizen(ship)” has been interpreted and translated into four distinct collective identities – Kokumin, Shimin, Koumin, and Jumin – which can be literally translated as the people of the “Country”, “City”, “Public Space”, and “Residence” respectively. Studies on these concepts remain theoretical, and it is unclear which identity contributes to differing perceptions of good citizenship. Hence, an original survey was conducted in Japan (N = 900), and Ordinary Least Squares regressions were performed. The results indicate that Koumin is positively associated with both duty-based and engaged forms of citizenship, whereas attachment to Jumin is linked to a decline in engaged citizenship. While the effect of Koumin on both forms of citizenship diminishes with age, the effect of Jumin, by contrast, increases as age rises. However, while both Koumin and Jumin predict participation in protests and assemblies, neither showed a significant relationship with voting in elections. This study provides insight into the nuances of citizenship identity, attachment, and norms in the case of Japan. It not only lays the foundation for future research on citizenship behaviour in Japan but also offers a basis for cross-national studies to explore the local and cultural dimensions of citizenship.

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Paper short abstract

Japan is often viewed as a model of good international citizenship, yet its engagement with liberal norms has differed substantially. We argue that Japan's selective norm adoption has enhanced its reputation and economy while contributing to the gradual fragility of the liberal international order.

Paper long abstract

The growing backlash against liberal norms and the international order raises a crucial question: to what extent did self-proclaimed liberal states such as Japan ever truly adopt liberal norms? Rather than attributing the erosion of the international order solely to authoritarian challengers, an increasing amount of research suggests that the biggest threat to liberal norms comes from shallow commitments and symbolic compliance among liberal states themselves (Gao 2023; True 2010). Such practices have made norms such as climate protection and gender equality particularly susceptible to misappropriation or co-optation. Japan, commonly portrayed as a 'civilian power' and a model of good international citizenship, has promoted cooperation, diplomacy and pacifism as defining elements of its post-war middle power identity (Clasen, 2024; Maull et al., 2023; Abbondanza, 2021). However, Japan's engagement with liberal norms, such as human rights, democracy, gender equality and refugee protection, has varied considerably, often remaining largely symbolic (Adachi, 2020; Motoyama, 2020; Flowers, 2009; Gurowitz, 1999). While previous research has examined this selective engagement, this paper considers how long-standing practices of selective and symbolic adoption of norms have benefited Japan, both in terms of its reputation and its economy, over time. It also considers how these practices are being recalibrated in response to the current backlash against liberalism.

Drawing on a discourse analysis of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Blue Books, Ministry of Defence White Papers and speeches delivered at the United Nations Security Council, the paper argues that Japan’s middle-power diplomacy has relied on strategically performing liberal norms in a way that enhances its international standing and economic positioning while simultaneously contributing to the gradual fragility of the international liberal order.

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Paper short abstract

This study analyzes how Korean migration to Japan during colonial rule (1910–1945) has indirectly shaped postwar Japanese electoral politics. Using panel data (1958–2015) and a fixed-effects model, it shows birthplace-driven spatial effects on voting and party support.

Paper long abstract

This study examines the long-term and spatial effects of Korean migration to Japan and its indirect impact on postwar Japanese electoral politics, focusing on House of Representatives elections between 1958 and 2015. The analysis is situated within the broader historical context of Japan’s colonial rule over Korea (1910–1945), when large numbers of Koreans—often through forced or semi-forced migration—moved to Japan. Many of their descendants, known as Zainichi Koreans, remained in Japan after World War II under ambiguous legal status and persistent social discrimination. Their settlement patterns and social presence have indirectly shaped the political preferences and voting behavior of surrounding Japanese communities.

The study builds a prefecture-level panel dataset combining House of Representatives election results, demographic indicators, and detailed immigration records from the Japanese National Diet Library. A fixed-effects model is used to estimate the effects of migrants’ regional origins on local electoral outcomes. The analysis distinguishes Korean migrants’ birthplaces by levels of economic development and political orientation, allowing for the identification of the key mechanism through which migration legacies affect Japanese politics.

The results show that the main channel of influence is the migrants’ birthplace on the Korean Peninsula. Birthplace characteristics—reflecting historical regional differences in economic and political conditions—exert lasting and spatially diverse effects on voting patterns, party support, and turnout across Japan’s 47 prefectures. These effects operate primarily through neighborhood-level social interaction and local diffusion. By linking colonial-era migration patterns to contemporary political behavior, this study demonstrates that imperial and migratory legacies continue to shape the structure of democratic politics in postcolonial Japan.