New Policies for New Residents: Immigrants, Advocacy, and Governance in Japan and Beyond
Deborah J. Milly
In recent decades, many countries have experienced both a rapid increase of in-migration of foreign nationals and a large-scale devolution of governance to the local level. The result has been new government policies to promote the social inclusion of recently arrived residents. In New Policies for New Residents, Deborah J. Milly focuses on the intersection of these trends in Japan. Despite the country's history of restrictive immigration policies, some Japanese favor a more accepting approach to immigrants. Policies supportive of foreign residents could help attract immigrants as the country adjusts to labor market conditions and a looming demographic crisis. As well, local citizen engagement is producing more inclusive approaches to community.Milly compares the policy discussions and outcomes in Japan with those in South Korea and in two similarly challenged Mediterranean nations, Italy and Spain. All four are recent countries of immigration, and all undertook major policy innovations for immigrants by the 2000s. In Japan and Spain, local NGO-local government collaboration has influenced national policy through the advocacy of local governments. South Korea and Italy included NGO advocates as policy actors and partners at the national level far earlier as they responded to new immigration, producing policy changes that fueled local networks of governance and advocacy. In all these cases, Milly finds, nongovernmental advocacy groups have the power to shape local governance and affect national policy, though in different ways.
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Reviews for New Policies for New Residents: Immigrants, Advocacy, and Governance in Japan and Beyond
Reinhard Drifte
Asian Affairs
Deborah J.Milly's New Policies for New Residents: Immigrants, Advocacy, and Governance in Japan and Beyond is an important contribution to the literature on immigrant integration, providing a new framework for considering the interplay between civil society groups and different levels of government in responding to the challenges created by the reality of immigrant communities. The implications of this research are interesting for immigrants, immigrant advocacy groups and local governments in immigrant-receiving communities, suggesting that there are ways to use the tools of democracy at both the national and local level to promote inclusion of immigrants in local decision making.
Betsy Brody
Pacific Affairs
Deborah Milly has written an outstanding book that makes for essential reading in a year when the migration of refugees and other displaced peoples has threatened the viability of the European Union more than any other crisis in the nearly 60 years since the European Economic Community was established.... Milly's book will be of great interest to anybody in academia, the policy world, or society at large interested in how immigrant policies are shaped by multilevel politics and the effects of devolution and civil society.
Anand Rao
International Migration Review