Becoming a non-immigration country with immigrants : the institutional regime of Japanese immigration policy towards economic migrants
Becoming a non-immigration country with immigrants : the institutional regime of Japanese immigration policy towards economic migrants
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成为有移民的非移民国家：日本经济移民移民政策的制度体系
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发表时间：
2014
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通讯作者：
Ayako Komine
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作者：
Ayako Komine
面对明显的连续性，我们如何发现和理解变化？这是一些制度主义学者提出的问题。回答这个问题的一种方法是为渐进变革提供分析空间，将其作为制度转型的内生源泉。坦率地说，并不总是需要战争和革命等引人注目的外生事件来解释制度变迁。本论文是对 20 世纪 80 年代以来日本经济移民移民政策的定性案例研究。其目的是通过借鉴 James Mahoney、Wolfgang Streeck 和 Kathleen Thelen 提出的制度变迁模型，揭示政策制定背后的因果机制。乍一看，这项调查似乎没有根据，因为日本既不是移民国家，也不是移民接收国。事实上，该国仍然缺乏可言的移民政策，移民仍然被称为“gaikokujin”（外国人），而不是“imin”（移民）。然而，仔细审视最近的政策发展就会发现，日本移民政策的内容和实践根本与其自我描述不符。自2012年以来，日本政府通过积分制度承认高技能移民为潜在的永久居民，并将外国人纳入日本公民的居民登记系统，以促进他们融入日本社会。本研究的核心主张是，日本的移民政策已变得越来越以定居为导向，这是早期政策决定的意外结果，并且这种变化是内生性的，并未废除现有的移民管理机构。在提出这一主张时，我特别提请注意微小变化的累积效应最终改变了政策制度的基本性质的方式。
How can one detect and understand change in the face of apparent continuity? This is the question which has been asked by some scholars of institutionalism. One way of answering this is to make analytical room for incremental change as an endogenous source of institutional transformation. Put bluntly, one does not always need spectacular exogenous events, such as wars and revolutions, to explain institutional change. The present thesis is a qualitative case study of Japan’s immigration policy towards economic migrants since the 1980s. Its aim is to uncover a causal mechanism behind the policy development by drawing on a model of institutional change put forward by James Mahoney, Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen. At first, the inquiry may seem ill-founded for Japan is neither an immigration country nor an immigrant-receiving country. Indeed, the country still lacks an immigration policy to speak of, and immigrants continue to be called gaikokujin (foreigners) as opposed to imin (immigrants). A closer examination of the recent policy development, however, shows that the content and practice of Japanese immigration policy simply belie its self-description. Since 2012 the Japanese government has admitted highly-skilled migrants as potential permanent residents using a points-based system and has incorporated foreigners into the resident register system for Japanese citizens in order to facilitate their integration into Japanese society. The central claim of the present research is that Japanese immigration policy has become increasingly settlement-oriented as an unexpected consequence of earlier policy decisions and that the change has been endogenously effected without dismantling the pre-existing institution of immigration management. In making this claim, I particularly draw attention to the way in which a cumulative effect of minor changes eventually transformed the basic nature of the policy institution.