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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the role of internationalization (kokusaika) in Japan’s immigration policy since the 1970s. It shows how international ambitions have competed with other frames and how their influence has varied across immigration policy subfields and phases of political debate.

Paper long abstract

Internationalization (kokusaika) has constituted an important and influential framing in Japan’s immigration policy toward refugees, international students, and foreign human resources. Since the 1970s, the conservative establishment has envisioned two contradictory trajectories in Japan’s national identity. On the one hand, it emphasized ethnic homogeneity as central pillar of Japan’s economic success. On the other hand, it aspired to a significantly expanded role for Japan in the international community, commensurate with its growing economic power. Despite this tension, internationalization has received considerably less attention in the scholarly literature than Japan’s ethnonationalism and identity discourses. While Japan has frequently been characterized as a paradigmatic ethno-nationalist state with a correspondingly restrictive and defensive immigration regime, its immigration policy has rarely been analysed from the perspective of Japan’s international positioning and global ambitions.

This paper analyses the development of the internationalization frame and its changing influence on immigration policy from the 1970s to the present. Methodologically, it draws on existing studies examining the relationship between immigration and internationalization (e.g., Gurowitz 1998; Tsutsui 2018; Yamawaki 2001), primary sources of immigration policy, and mass media coverage of Japan’s internationalization. Together, these materials allow us to trace half a century of interaction between internationalization narratives and immigration policy reforms.

More specifically, the paper focuses on seven periods of intensified immigration policy debate and examines the fluctuating role and influence of internationalization discourse within each: the small-scale guest worker debate around 1970, the refugee debate around 1980, the foreign students debate in the early 1980s, the reactive immigration debate around 1990, the proactive immigration debate of the late 2000s, the labour-shortage-driven immigration debate of the late 2010s, and the current immigration backlash debate. The analysis covers three immigration policy subfields: humanitarian immigration, the recruitment of highly skilled foreign talent, and the admission of low- or medium-skilled foreign workers. In addition, the paper examines which policy actors actively mobilized internationalization narratives and assesses the degree of influence they exerted across different periods and policy subfields. This approach enables a deeper understanding of institutional fragmentation, differentiated policy arenas, and the long-term trajectory and critical turning points of Japan’s immigration policy.