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Japanese Conservatism and the Integration of Foreign Residents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2010

MICHAEL STRAUSZ
MICHAEL STRAUSZ*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, [email protected]
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Abstract

Granting foreign permanent residents the right to vote in local elections in Japan was one of the Clean Government Party (CGP)'s major policy priorities during its 11 years governing in coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). While the CGP proposed several bills that would have done this, none of those bills came close to passing. Why not? Conventional wisdom about Japanese conservatism suggests that the LDP would not support such a bill because the party is uniformly committed to the idea that Japan is a one-ethnicity country, and thus the party is hostile to proposals that would grant those without Japanese ethnicity a role in Japanese society. However, I argue that Japanese conservatives in general, and LDP politicians in particular, have major disagreements about the appropriate role of foreign residents in Japanese society. Moreover, I argue that LDP politicians did not support the CGP's proposal to grant foreign permanent residents the right to vote in local elections in Japan because this proposal did not appeal to politicians from either of the dominant conservative schools of thought about foreign residents in Japan.

Type
Research Article
Information
Japanese Journal of Political Science , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , August 2010 , pp. 245 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 I write Japanese names in the Japanese style, with the family name first.

2 Yomiuri Shimbun, 27 September 2009.

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6 McKeown argues ‘If the investigator is searching empirical evidence to identify causal processes, terming this activity “identification” seems preferable. We can then reserve the term test for those situations where more than one substantive model has been developed and brought to bear, and there is a comparative assessment of the success of the models in explaining the outcomes of interest’ (ibid. p. 164).

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12 When Sakanaka was writing, Koreans were by far the largest foreign minority group in Japan. In 2008, Chinese became the largest foreign minority group. However, as will be discussed below, Koreans still make up the majority of foreign permanent residents in Japan.

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19 In Sakanaka's more recent writing, he has moved away from a conservative take on immigration. In a recent blog post, Sakanaka argued that Japan should aggressively admit young immigrants both to address Japan's declining population and because Japan will not be able to succeed economically if Japanese people do not understand foreign cultures. This recent essay suggests that Japanese society would profit from a radical challenge to the idea that Japan is a tan'itsu minzoku shakai (i.e. aggressive admission of young immigrants), and that is not a conservative idea. Sakanaka Hidenori, ‘Imin no Sekkyokuteki na Ukeire ga Nihon no Keizai to Shakai wo Sasaeru’ (Aggressive Immigrant Admission Supports Japan's Economy and Society). From Sakanaka Hidenori's blog Sakanaka Channel, http://blog.livedoor.jp/jipi/archives/51263561.html. Accessed 25 May 2009.

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36 Ibid.

37 House of Councilors, Budget Committee, 13 March 2007.

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39 House of Representatives, Plenary Session, 21 January 2008.

40 House of Representatives, Special Committee to Examine the Constitution, 16 March 2006.

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44 House of Councilors, Budget Committee, 13 March 2007.

45 House of Councilors, Committee on the Declining Birthrate and an Aging Population, 23 April 2008.

46 House of Councilors, Budget Committee, 13 March 2007.

47 House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee, 19 May 2006.

48 House of Representatives, Special Committee for the Establishment of Political Ethics and the Reform of the Public Officials Election Law, 16 November 2004.

49 House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee, 19 May 2006.

50 House of Councilors, Budget Committee, 13 March 2006.

51 House of Representatives, Plenary Session, 21 January 2008.

52 House of Councilors, Budget Committee, 13 March 2007.

53 House of Representatives, Special Committee for the Establishment of Political Ethics and the Reform of the Public Officials Election Law, 16 November 2004.

54 House of Councilors, Committee on the Declining Birthrate and an Aging Population, 6 April 2005.

55 In fairness, it might have been challenging for him to avoid acknowledging this, because this statement is drawn from a debate with DPJ MP Haku Shinkun, a naturalized citizen of Japan with Korean ethnicity.

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66 Yomiuri Shimbun, 8 June 2008.

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