Have Japanese Voters Begun to Care about Migration?
Abstract
Abstract In recent elections across major destination countries in the developed world, migration has become a major issue of political salience. Japan has traditionally been an outlier to the trend, but migration did become a major topic driving public opinion in the 2025 Upper House election. This article explores the overall political salience of migration in Japan, focusing primarily on how the ruling coalition managed public discourse as it pushed through major reforms over the past decade, why it lost control of the narrative in the recent election, and what this means for the politics of migration in Japan going forward.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Japanese History and Culture
Electoral Systems and Political Participation
Populism
Right-Wing Movements
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Japan focus
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Volume
- 24
- Publication date
- 1 January 2026
- Language
- EN