Tag: immigration

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Japan-related research

JPOSS #30: “Nationally Prioritized Migrant Groups and Public Perception: Evidence from Framing and Conjoint Experiments in East Asia”

The thirtieth session of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS) took place on June 9, 2022. Phillip Y. Lipscy (University of Toronto) chaired the seminar and moderated the Q&A session.

Yujin Woo (Hitotsubashi University) presented a paper co-authored with Jaehyun Song (Kansai University), which looks at the effect of repeated government messaging on public perception of migrants. Drawing from the cognitive psychology literature, the authors study the competing theoretical expectations that message repetition leads to increased support for policies due to persuasion (“truth effect”) and decreased support due to overexposure (“reactance”). Their study also makes use of cross-country comparisons to investigate the effect of variation in the discursive contexts surrounding migrant integration. The authors conducted combined framing and conjoint experiments through online surveys in Japan and South Korea between 2020 and 2021. Their analyses produce mixed findings. On one hand, when respondents are exposed to vignettes about policies aligned with the government rhetoric, the results do not lend support to the truth effect or reactance theories. However, the authors do find evidence of framing effects for policies targeting migrant groups that are less common to the country context.

Charles Crabtree (Dartmouth College) and Kikuko Nagayoshi (University of Tokyo) offered insightful comments on the research method and interpretation of results. During the Q&A session, participants raised questions about the survey design and offered suggestions on alternative ways to understand the results obtained by the authors.

This event attracted around 30 participants and produced an engaging Q&A session. The organizers would like to thank the presenters, discussants, and participants, as well as the staff at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, who provided administrative support. We look forward to seeing you at the next session of JPOSS: https://jposs.org/

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comparative politics Japan-related research

JPOSS #13 “Selecting Legal Residents by Unemployment and Ethnicity in the Liberal Democratic State to ‘Control Unwanted Immigration’: Remigration in The Netherlands and Japan 1985-2011”

The thirteenth session of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS) took place on April 15, 2021. Amy Catalinac (New York University) chaired the seminar and moderated the question and answer session.

Michael Sharpe (York College/CUNY) presented his paper, “Selecting Legal Residents by Unemployment and Ethnicity in the Liberal Democratic State to ‘Control Unwanted Immigration’: Remigration in The Netherlands and Japan 1985-2011.” In his presentation, Sharpe explored why the Netherlands (a country with a relatively liberal immigration policy legacy) has pursued a policy of remigration targeting immigrants from non-European backgrounds while Japan (a country with a more restrictive policy legacy) has pursued a similar policy focused on encouraging immigrants with Japanese ancestry to leave Japan. Sharpe answers this question using archival and ethnographic research conducted in the Netherlands and Japan during 2006-2012 and 2018. During his presentation, Sharpe outlined three arguments: first, that the Netherlands and Japan follow institutional patterns and practices of emigration. Second, that processes of re-ethnicization (reinforcing ties with emigrants across foreign born generations) can be observed in the Netherlands, while de-ethnicization (easing access for all immigrants) occurred in Japan. Tying these two arguments together, Sharpe further argued that said remigration policies are a symbolic attempt by states to control unwanted immigration and address critical “ethnic” social and economic problems with implications for national identity and international law.

Discussant comments were offered by Annika Hinze (Fordham University) and  Michael Strausz (Texas Christian University). The discussion raised interesting questions about Japanese immigration politics and policy. The discussants and the audience also offered many constructive suggestions pertaining to research methods and possible future directions of the research.

This event attracted close to thirty participants and produced an engaging Q&A session. The organizers would like to thank the presenters, discussants, and participants, as well as the staff at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, who provided administrative support. We look forward to seeing you at the next session of JPOSS: https://jposs.org/

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comparative politics Japan-related research

JPOSS #4 “Can University Education Cultivate Immigrant Integration? The Case of Local Enfranchisement for Foreign Residents in Japan”

The fourth session of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS) took place on October 1, 2020. Yusaku Horiuchi (Dartmouth) chaired the seminar and moderated the question and answer session.

Fan Lu (Queens University) and Gento Kato (Nazarbayev University) presented their paper, “Can University Education Cultivate Immigrant Integration? The Case of Local Enfranchisement for Foreign Residents in Japan.” In their presentation, Lu and Kato introduced an original theoretical argument that more clearly specifies the relationship between support for immigration and natives’ level of education than existing political science and migration studies have done. Moreover, their innovative theoretical model is tailored to explain the nuances of the Japanese context. Using sophisticated matching techniques to analyze public opinion surveys fielded between 2009 and 2014, Lu and Kato argue that Japanese university education broadly has a limited impact on public support for granting voting rights to foreign residents. However, they do find that university education does stronger effect when it is mediated through improved attitudes toward Koreans (the dominant group of permanent foreign residents in Japan also referred to as Zainichi Koreans) and that females are more likely to support enfranchisement of foreign residents than males.

Discussant comments were offered by Reiko Kage (University of Tokyo) and Rocio Titiunik (Princeton). The discussion raised interesting questions about the ways in which university education may instill progressive social and political views in students as well as the nuances and uniqueness of Japan’s legacy of disenfranchised former colonial subjects. The discussants and the audience also offered many constructive suggestions on the framing of the argument, research methods, and possible future directions of the research.

This event attracted around forty participants and produced an engaging Q&A session. The organizers would like to thank the presenters, discussants, and participants, as well as the staff at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, who provided administrative support. We look forward to seeing you at the next session of JPOSS: https://jposs.org/

Categories
comparative politics Japan-related research

JPOSS #1 “The New Consensus on Immigration? Identifying the Racial Undertones of Immigrant Selection Outside the Western Context”

The inaugural session of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS) took place on July 9, 2020. Phillip Lipscy (University of Toronto) offered welcome remarks and encouraged participants to submit papers for future sessions at https://jposs.org/submit/. Amy Catalinac (New York University) chaired the seminar and moderated the question and answer session.

Nicholas A. R. Fraser (University of Toronto) and John W. Cheng (Tsuda University) presented their paper, “The New Consensus on Immigration?: Identifying the Racial Undertones of Immigrant Selection Outside the Western Context.” In their presentation, Fraser and Cheng explored Japanese attitudes toward immigration—a topic that is increasingly salient in contemporary Japanese politics. Specifically, they discussed the results of a survey-based study that asks respondents to consider allowing randomly generated profiles of hypothetical immigrants to enter Japan. Building on previous studies that explore public support for immigration, they demonstrated that Japanese respondents tend to prefer high-skilled immigrants. Moreover, Fraser and Cheng’s study finds that Japanese tend to prefer white immigrants from developed countries over those from developing countries. Fraser and Cheng explained how their paper contributes to our understanding of Japanese immigration policy and the politics that shape it.

Discussant comments were offered by Hilary Holbrow (Harvard University), Rieko Kage (University of Tokyo), Charles Crabtree (Dartmouth College), and Yusaku Horiuchi (Dartmouth College). The discussion raised fascinating questions about whether and how racial biases in the West translate to the Japanese context. The discussants and audience also offered many constructive suggestions on the framing, research design, and analysis of the paper.

The seminar attracted around sixty participants from all over the world. The organizers would like to thank the presenters, discussants, and participants, as well as the staff at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, who provided administrative support. We look forward to seeing you at the next session of JPOSS. You can learn more here: https://jposs.org/