Japan's "Nationality Clause" and the Changing Dynamics of Center-Local Politics

In the mid-1990s, excitement began to build around a new group of headline-grabbing governors in Japan. Taking office in rural prefectures typically among the most conservative and dependent on central subsidies, they nevertheless exchanged deferential poses for a far more adversarial stance toward the national government, challenging the norms of center-local interaction. In their own words, they sought to "change Japan from the regions." Both domestic and foreign media exclaimed over their willingness to "talk back to Kasumigaseki" and proclaimed "the day of the governors."¹ Their emergence, which proved instrumental to the changing dynamics of center-local politics in Japan, was linked to the controversial "nationality clause" (kokuseki jōkō 国籍条項),² a 1953 Cabinet Legislative Bureau directive never enacted into law but maintained for decades through administrative guidance by the powerful Ministry of Home Affairs (Jichisho 自治省; MOHA).³ The politics of the nationality clause-the way it served these governors in the debate over local autonomy and helped energize reform in local governments-offers valuable insights into the dynamics of political change in Japan.

The original "reformist governors" (kaikakuha chiji 改革派知事), including Hashimoto Daijirō of Kōchi, Katayama Yoshihiro 片山善博 of Tottori, Kitagawa Masayasu 北川正泰 of Mie, Asano Shirō 浅野史郎 of Miyagi, and Masuda Hiroya 増田寛也 of Iwate, were likened to the fathers of the Meiji Restoration, which suggested that once again fundamental change would come not from the center, but from the rural recesses of Japan. They represented an impressive break from previous local leaders-often rejecting traditional party affiliation to run as independents, canceling public works projects, and undertaking sweeping reforms of local bureaucracies.⁴ While all have since left office, at the time a remarkable amount of attention was given to these iconoclastic governors, who jokingly referred to themselves as "aliens," so removed were they from traditional governors in terms of policy, style of politicking, and relationship to both local and national government.

The reformist governors pursued issues that had both national and local relevance in the 1990s, introducing information disclosure policies, eliminating slush funds created by bureaucrats within their respective prefectures, and, at a time of fiscal retrenchment, introducing administrative reforms aimed at transparent, cost-effective, and competitive local government. They championed reforms in response to accumulated popular resentment over centrally imposed public works projects and to outrage over bureaucratic corruption, yet they also shared an interest in another more surprising and controversial issue: the legal authority of MOHA to restrict the employment of foreign residents in local government under the nationality clause. In 1995 Governor Hashimoto Daijirō challenged the legality of MOHA's guidelines regarding local government employment in Kōchi, initiating a turf war that eventually led to a historic reversal in ministry policy. Subsequently, four of the five original members of Hashimoto's reformist governor network, Chiiki kara Kawaru Nihon, removed the nationality clause restriction from prefectural hiring practices (as had seven other prefectures as of 2001; see figure 1).

Why, in rural prefectures with a relatively small number of foreign residents, would reformist governors spend political capital confronting the nationality clause issue-something that appears at first glance a political liability? For them, opposition to the nationality clause was a cause with no obvious local backers or beneficiaries. In other prefectures with large populations of zainichi Koreans,⁵ meanwhile, the issue was contentious, as zainichi activism was met by fierce opposition to allowing such "foreign residents" to work as public servants. Particularly for the reformists, independents who eschewed traditional party affiliation, much less a progressive identification, it seems worth asking: why did they bother?

Figure 1.

Year nationality clause restriction lifted. In some cases, the prefectural personnel committee approved elimination in the preceding calendar year.

The answer to this question lies in the intersection of an old issue with a new chapter in Japanese politics. Local activists in urban centers of the Kansai and Kantō regions had long sought expanded public employment opportunities for zainichi residents. Then, with the advent of a period of coalition government following the LDP's historic fall from power in...