National and local political discourses of rural in-migration in Japan

Abstract

This paper analyses the political discourses around depopulation and policy measures to encourage in-migration from urban to rural areas in Japan. Based on policy texts, national party manifestos, and mayoral candidate manifestos, the paper applies mixed methods to illuminate how depopulation and in-migration is framed and debated at both national and local levels. The dominant frame at national level assumes non-Tokyo “regions”, chiefly depopulating rural areas, as having both potential and responsibility to revive demographically and economically. It claims that these rural areas tend to be more conducive to young families seeking to raise children and must play an important role in slowing or even reversing Japan's population decline. These assumptions are largely unchallenged by opposition parties, aside from the communists, at national level and echoed by most mayoral candidates at local level. Few voices provide alternatives frames or challenge the claim that only with population growth can regions thrive. The framing of Japan's state-led promotion of rural in-migration is found to differ from political discourses around rural issues identified in comparative literature.