“Globalisation, Labour Migration and State Transformation in Contemporary Japan”

This working paper discusses the impact of international labour migration to contemporary Japan. This is an issue which has been less frequently examined in existing studies on globalisation conducted from IR/IPE perspectives, both in terms of the kind of globalisation force and regions analysed. Particular attention is paid to the ‘language barrier problem’ in Japan’s criminal justice process, for this problem reflects the considerable changes in world politics of East Asia and Japan in the last three decades, and as such constitutes a force of globalisation. This study argues that the Japanese state has managed to respond to the language barrier problem and in doing so has transformed part of its sovereignty from a territory-based one to a partially transterritorial one.