Japanese approaches to governance historically favored informal, bureaucratic, and legally non-binding “soft law” measures. Yet Japan has enacted more legalistic social policies in the past two decades, and the role of law and courts in policy processes has grown. What accounts for this shift in governance toward more formalized rules and enforcement mechanisms? Most explanations...
The question of how migrants decide whether to stay in the country for a longer period or if and when they leave represents one of the important yet still relatively understudied issues particularly in the case of Japan. With the increase of Japan’s migrant population – and despite the official policy of not promoting permanent...