Multiculturalism in Japan: Citizenship policy for immigrants

These questions will undoubtedly turn into core questions of ‘governance in multicultural societies’ after some minor modifications. But, at the same time, an assumption behind the questions seems to be that multicultural issues and events have risen from internal influence within a society independent of external influence from other societies. This chapter focuses on a part of the question (c) to investigate how to govern multicultural societies from a viewpoint of citizenship policy, and extends the analysis to a nation-state outside the Western sphere through a discussion of an Asian country, Japan. To establish and stabilize multicultural societies, citizenship policy by national governments is one of the key public policies. The question taken up in this chapter is how and why the Japanese state has responded to the presence of immigrants and ethnic minorities by citizenship policy.