In many parts of the world, historically marginalized groups, such as women and immigrants, are now slowly integrated into the political process, while historically dominant groups, such as men and natives, sometimes show an adverse reaction to their presence.
This panel comprises five novel papers that explore what facilitates or hinders the inclusion of women and immigrants in politics and society. Two papers focus on women’s representation in Japan. Yamada assesses the degree of gender gap in political participation in Japan, which is widely known about the low percentage of female politicians in the legislatures. It remains unclear whether women are less active in various types of political activities than men. He uses several (cross-national) survey data to understand the degree and determinants of the gender gap in participation. Miwa and Nakagoshi examine whether voters show more support for politicians who condemn sexism. They hypothesize that this relationship is stronger among male politicians than among female politicians.
Three papers explore the consequences of immigration in Japan and Western Europe. Igarashi and Ogura seek to examine whether correcting false stereotypes about immigrants can ameliorate natives’ negative attitudes toward them and how long the effect of such corrections endures using a panel survey experiment in Japan. Atsumi focuses on electoral strategies of Populist Radical Right-wing parties (PRRPs) in Western European countries. PRRPs typically seek to gain public support by exploiting anti-immigration sentiments. Yet, some PRRPs use more conservative economic policies to appeal to highly educated voters. In contrast, others appeal to losers in the era of globalization by using left-wing economic policies. She analyzes what determines the choice of these electoral strategies by the PRRPs. Matsumoto and Kishishita assess whether people prefer high-income immigrants over low-income ones when they perceive that immigrants could strain welfare resources using a survey experiment in Japan.