Dam break in Japan’s immigration policy: the 2018 reform in a long-term perspective

The 2018 reform is a dam break in Japan’s immigration policy. Previously, for decades, the opening of the Japanese labour market for lower-qualified foreign workers was discussed without any comprehensive reform despite far-reaching proposals. This article discusses this change from a persistent standstill to comprehensive reform by analysing comparatively the frames and institutional setting in earlier immigration debates around 1970, around 1990, and around 2005 with the debate in the late 2010s. It argues that the persistent stalemate on the most hotly debated issue of immigration policy was due to the diversity of frames with very different policy implications and an institutional fragmentation in policy-making without any pivotal policy entrepreneur. The comprehensive reform of 2018 is the result of a window of opportunity by the conjuncture of a declining security frame as the main counterargument and by the centralization of decision-making in the core executive in the later years of the second term of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō (2012–20) on the level of institutional setting. Abe and his entourage were reluctant policy entrepreneurs who only realized the 2018 reform because of pressure and the absence of any other policy option. Still, they fundamentally changed the framework in Japanese immigration policy.