New Policies for New Residents: Immigrants, Advocacy, and Governance in Japan and Beyond

Conclusion: Advocacy toward Inclusion?

Conclusion ADVOCACY TOWARD INCLUSION? This book has been a narrative of pathways to change—in policies to include noncitizens and in processes of citizen inclusion in multilevel governance. Pro­ cesses of crafting governance, advocacy, membership, and policies have all been part of the mix.As citizens claim a greater role for themselves in decision making in multilevel governance, they also contribute to defining the membership of foreign residents. How this role contributes to national policies, however, var­ ies significantly from country to country, and the full impact on building an inclusive society is far from clear. In some cases, issue­oriented humanitarian advocates have been able to acquire national influence on behalf of immigrants. Yet in others, the pivotal actors have been subnational governments or regional parties, with which civil society groups have cooperated and through which they have exerted some indirect influence. Despite leading to generally similar national policies, advocacy­governance relationships have varied, with some having established relationships to national political elites and others emerging from processes of local community and institution building. Processes of Policy Change for Immigrants I have asked how changes in the relationships among different levels of govern­ ment over policy, civil society’s participation in governance, and national policy advocacy have produced policy changes for immigrants. More specifically, I have 192 193 ADVOCACY TOWARD INCLUSION? examined which groups have led in promoting policy changes, along with asking how they are enmeshed in changes in governance. In the four countries, the relative roles of national civil society groups and subnational governments in encouraging national policy changes have been tied to differences in the emer­ gence of multilevel governance, leading to different formulations of immigrants’ inclusion. These processes of advocacy have occurred within ongoing and often incom­ plete devolution. Devolved governance allows some room for local innovation depending on the policy, while policies hammered out in national political pro­ cesses still set limits that frame subnational responsibilities. The dynamics in these partially devolved systems are not easily reduced to the terms of central versus local authority, as the distribution of policy responsibilities and charac­ teristics of policy­specific networks lack uniformity. Networks of officials and nongovernmental groups have grown up in response to how responsibilities are distributed, and, as chapter 6 suggests, partially devolved policy responsibilities tend to evoke vertical and horizontal cooperative networks that link local and national policy stakeholders in ongoing relationships. By focusing on the development of policies and advocacy intended to con­ tribute to immigrants’ inclusion, I have provided a perspective on national pol­ icy advocacy that can inform considerations of multiculturalism in Japan and the role of local governments in developing new measures.1 I have done this by identifying the structural contexts in which policies to include immigrants are constructed, how innovations by local governments become the basis for policy change, and the ways that national advocacy by civil society groups and local governments differs. I have also provided a comparative framework for making sense of Japanese patterns. National Policy Processes Both national civil society groups and subnational governments have been part of national policymaking for immigrants. In three of the countries, national processes have shifted from being predominantly bureaucratically dominated and often involving formal consultation to processes in which elected repre­ sentatives and public discussion have taken over; Japan is the exception in the extent of control that bureaucrats continue to possess, even though political leaders have exercised leadership at points. This general pattern, however, masks differences in terms of how humanitarian civil society groups have been tied into policy discussions. In Italy, they were certainly vocal in the 1980s, and they were included in a range of consultative mechanisms that also came to include regional governments; as discussion shifted to the political sphere, they 194 CONCLUSION were able to maintain similar access. In Korea, civil society groups mobilized to lobby bureaucrats and politicians simultaneously, but it took some time to build a coalition of support among key bureaucrats and politicians for policy changes that eventually came about through political leadership. Their inclusion in formal national commissions and advisory boards occurred together with their strengthening influence with both politicians and bureaucratic officials. In Spain, some national incorporation of civil society occurred through their inclusion on bureaucratically established councils but was paralleled by stronger regional impact. Nationally, politicians took charge of the issues through legisla­ tive changes in the late 1990s that partly reflected the impact of...