Japanese Local Governments Facing the Reality of Immigration

Extract

This paper presents the results of a survey conducted on Japanese municipal governments regarding their attitudes and policies towards foreign residents. While assimilation and exclusion were historically the only approaches the Japanese authorities took in handling immigrants (mostly Korean former colonials), the reality of ever-increasing immigration heralds the task of integration. A national government is generally the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to immigration policy, including matters of integration. Yet most pressure to perform better is framed in terms of immigration control. The Japanese government, following European examples, perceives control and integration as the two pillars of its immigration policy, but the latter task needs more local involvement than the former. Therefore it is meaningful to focus on local-level immigration policy, which inevitably focuses more attention on immigrant integration.