'Foreigners Are Committing Very Heinous Crimes': Framing of Deviance and Order in Japan’s Immigration Policy
In recent decades, following the terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11, 2001, a securitization of immigration policy has been identified in many Western industrialized countries. In the case of Japan, however, issues of public and national security have played a central role in immigration policy since the early 1950s and have helped to shape it. Japanese immigration policy is primarily discussed in the research literature in the context of ethnic homogeneity and the associated national identity discourses, but this paper argues that the security frame has had the strongest curbing influence on public opinion and in policy processes.
David Chiavacci is Professor in Social Science of Japan at the University of Zurich. His specialization is political and economic sociology of contemporary Japan in a comparative perspective. The focus of his current research is on social movements, social inequality and Japan's new immigration and immigration policy.
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