The Political Construction of Foreign Workers in Japan

Japan organizes its labor markets for foreign workers hierarchically according to “race’ or “nationality.” Zainichi foreigners and nikkeijin are at the high end of the racial hierarchy with better jobs, higher pay, and better working conditions than other foreign workers. At the bottom end are South Asians with casual jobs, poor pay, and dangerous working environments. This racialized hierarchy, which produces differentiated wages and other privileges across different groups of foreign workers, is a political construction of Japanese government officials, who form policies that both establish the legal superiority of certain races over others and constrain the operation of each tier of foreign workers. Japanese employers perpetuate this labor market arrangement by cooperating with government bureaus and yakuza in maintaining labor disciplines tailored to each racial group. These actions create and sustain a racialized economy in Japan that is characterized by inferior jobs, little security, and few benefits for certain sectors of the labor market.     

Changes and continuity in southwestern Yunnan: The Xishuangbanna Tai autonomous prefecture

Abstract

About thirty years ago, in the 1940s, the chief of a local Tai (Thai) community brought in a bicycle from Thailand. He did not use it for riding because the roads there were too rough and narrow. But he made good use of this strange piece by collecting five baht from curious viewers.     

A Comparison of Political Factionalism in Japan and India*

Most studies of political factionalism begin with attempts to define the terms ‘faction’ and ‘factionalism’. The resultant definitions are then regarded as having universal validity, irrespective of time, place, or political culture. The use of this procedure, in our opinion, leads either to the unwarranted universalisation of causal relationships having limited scope, or to generalisations which are too broad to be of much practical value.     

台湾海归与台湾政治

对20世纪80年代以来台湾历任最高领导人及各部委第一负责人最高学历的分析统计显示,在美国、欧洲地区各国及日本名校获得高学历之海归人士,已经构成台湾政坛的精英主体.本文梳理台湾政坛海归的基本构成、比例及影响,剖析台湾海归在台湾政治中具有的特殊软实力,同时也指出他们的政治软肋,评介台湾当局成文与不成文的相关政策法规,深化对海归参政之现实意义的认识.     

US-Japan Alliance: The Political Dimension

George W. Bush was inaugurated as the new president of the United States on 20 January 2001. How will the change in personnel influence Washington's approach to its relationship with East Asia and, in particular, with Japan? Takashi Oka, a Washington-based consultant to the Liberal Party of Japan who was for many years a correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, considers this question in the following article. Oka argues that the strategic importance of the US-Japan alliance has not lessened with the end of the Cold War,and that in order to confront the security challenges of the twenty-first century, Japan's position within the US-Japan alliance needs to change from that of a protected subordinate to that of an equal partner. For this to be possible, a politician with sufficient vision and power, someone with a clear foreign policy, who is strong enough in domestic politics to carry out that policy, needs to emerge in Japan.     

日本民主党兴起的政治社会基础

日本民主党自1996年成立以来,不断发展壮大,成为仅次于自民党的第二大党.本文从三个方面分析了民主党兴起的政治社会基础,其一是冷战后日本政治的整体保守化 ,其二是各政党的分裂与合并,其三是日本社会的变迁.从中可见经济、科技与社会变迁等因素对政党兴衰的影响.     

The dynamics of coalition politics in Japan

Over the past seven years, Japan's party system has undergone a transition from single-party rule to multi-party coalitions, albeit under continuing LDP dominance. The LDP's propensity for coalition politics has been influenced not only by the loss of its Diet majorities but by a number of other factors including the end of the polarized party politics of the Cold War period. In this article, Aurelia George Mulgan, Associate Professor of Politics at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy, explains the LDP's complex Diet management strategy underlying its choice of coalition partners. At the same time, Dr. George Mulgan argues that these strategies represent just a more developed form of the deal-making politics the LDP pursued during periods of evenly balanced Diet forces in the 1970s and 1980s. The key difference is the greater level of transparency and Diet-centered nature of inter-party negotiations.     

The Koreans of Japan: An Issue of Human Rights

Abstract

By 1965, Taiwan has changed from a labor surplus economy into a labor shortage economy. This article examines how rising demand for labor due to rapid economic growth in Taiwan has been met since 1965. This article attempts to answer 1) Where did the labor supply come from? 2) Has all of the potential labor supply been tapped and exhausted? 3) Is it possible for labor shortage and unutilized labor reserve to occur simultaneously? The authors hope that this study will lead to a better understanding of the limitation of the free market mechanism and help identify the proper public policies to enhance labor utilization.