Paper short abstract

This paper examines migration governance in Japan’s peripheries. Drawing on policy analysis and fieldwork, it shows how decentralization and neoliberalization shifts responsibility to local governments, which need to collaborate and innovate to sustain regional communities amid demographic decline.

Paper long abstract

Historically frontiers and springboards for imperial expansion, Japan’s borderlands today are peripheralized regions only tenuously connected to neighboring states. However, Japan’s largest and most inhabited borderlands regions, Hokkaido and Okinawa, increasingly depend on the governance of migration in sectors such as agriculture, seafood production and processing, nursing and care work, and tourism to offset a slowing domestic economy, demographic decline, and shrinking public-sector budgets. Drawing upon policy analysis and fieldwork conducted in Okinawa and Hokkaido between February and September 2025, I use a process-tracing perspective to demonstrate that the development of migration governance regimes in Japan’s borderlands needs to be understood in the context of Japan’s broader shift towards decentralized and neoliberalized governance. I comparatively trace the trajectory of policies that continue to incentivize the recruitment and retention of foreign migrants in Japan’s peripheral areas, rather than its urban cores, alongside a range of projects aimed at promoting the migration of Japanese citizens from core areas to the borderlands. The use of policy tools such as National Strategic Zones (NSZs), subnational bilateral agreements for foreign migrant recruitment, and the promotion of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the governance of both foreign and domestic migrants show how the state has shifted autonomy and responsibility for development and regional revitalization in Japan’s borderlands onto prefectural and municipal governments, which in turn must cooperate heavily with semi-public and private partners to compensate for limited resources and capacity. I introduce a typology of governance configurations based on the types of interactions between various levels of government, demonstrating that while local governments show initiative and innovation, alignment with national-level discourses and frameworks is often crucial for successful outcomes.