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Paper short abstract

This paper analyzes the transnational political engagement of Japanese migrants who actively support a Japanese political party, focusing on their motivations for long-distance political participation and the meanings and broader implications of such engagement.

Paper long abstract

Contemporary migrants actively engage with their homelands in various ways, including following homeland news, visiting their countries of origin, sending remittances, and consuming popular culture. Such migrants are often described as transmigrants, as they maintain social, cultural, and political ties across national borders. One important dimension of transmigrant practices is homeland political engagement, which includes expressing political opinions, campaigning for homeland political parties, and participating in elections through external voting. This paper examines the transnational political engagement of Japanese migrants. While existing scholarship on migrants’ homeland political participation has largely focused on migrants from the Global South, relatively little attention has been paid to Japanese migrants. Although research on Japanese migration has expanded in recent decades—addressing migration motivations, settlement experiences, and the diversity of migrant categories such as expatriates, marriage migrants, and cultural migrants—their engagement with homeland politics remains underexplored. To address this gap, this study draws on interviews with Japanese migrants in Europe who are active overseas supporters of a Japanese political party. Although these individuals have no intention of returning to Japan, they remain highly engaged in Japanese politics and participate in various activities to express their concerns and political views from abroad. This paper traces their migration trajectories, examines their reasons for leaving Japan, and analyzes their motivations for political engagement across distance. It further explores the meanings they attach to such engagement and discusses its broader implications for understanding transnational political participation among Japanese migrants.