Abstract
Given the results of the 2017 Japanese general election, how likely are we to see a rapid increase in immigration in the near future? Will we see the rise of an anti-immigrant populist political force in Japan? This chapter addresses these questions with reference to candidate positions and public opinion from the last several Japanese elections. One of this chapter’s most surprising findings is that, although a plurality of Diet members (DMs) consistently do not take a position on foreign labor, in 2017 there was a strong correlation between the percentage of DMs in a prefecture who took a position on foreign labor and the percentage of DMs in that prefecture who support increasing foreign labor. This suggests that many DMs not taking a position on foreign labor might actually support foreign labor but do not want to be one of only a few candidates in their prefecture taking that position.
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Notes
- 1.
Le Pen advanced to the second round of the 2017 French presidential election, which was an unexpected success for her, but she lost in the second round.
- 2.
For more analysis of candidate positions, see Arai and Nakajo (this volume, p. 149).
- 3.
There is no question on the Tokyo University/Asahi survey of candidates that Masaki Taniguchi directs before the Japanese election about immigration. In 2017 candidates were only asked about foreign labor, and in previous elections they were also asked about proposals to grant foreign residents the right to vote in local elections in Japan. This distinction between immigration and foreign labor is not a trivial one, and it is discussed in more depth below.
- 4.
A t-test of the difference in mean between LDP candidates and Hope candidates has a statistical significance of 0.008, with the 95% confidence interval of the difference in means ranging from 0.06 to 0.37. The difference in means between Hope and the CDP is not statistically significant, likely because there were relatively few CDP candidates, making the threshold for statistical significance more rigorous.
- 5.
For more discussion of the politics of this policy area see Strausz (2010).
- 6.
In 2009 Pearson’s r was 0.239 (one-tailed significance level 0.059), in 2012 Pearson’s r was 0.245 (one-tailed significance level 0.048), and in 2014 Pearson’s r was −0.192, (one-tailed significance level 0.093).
- 7.
The correlation between each of the measures of a prefecture’s job seeker’s ratio and the percent of that prefecture’s public that is made up of trainees and technical interns is above 0.5 with a reported significance level of 0.000.
- 8.
I am grateful to Vanessa Bouche for suggesting this.
- 9.
The correlation is −0.562, with a reported significance level of 0.000.
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Strausz, M. (2018). Does the LDP Want to Build a Wall Too? Immigration and the 2017 Election in Japan. In: Pekkanen, R., Reed, S., Scheiner, E., Smith, D. (eds) Japan Decides 2017. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76475-7_12
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