The politics of periphery and depopulation: Japan and Sweden

As in many other places, the question of depopulating and economically disadvantaged communities, primarily in rural areas, has been a salient political issue for both Japan and Sweden. For decades, Japanese administrations have promoted the “balanced development of the nation” and “regional revitalization”,  with concerns raised that nearly half of all municipalities will become “extinct” due to ongoing depopulation. Recent Swedish governments have addressed a widening gap between growing cities and shrinking communities, with politicians of all stripes promising that “all of Sweden should live”. Though in many ways very different demographically, culturally, and institutionally, both Japan and Sweden are interesting cases to compare. The former has experienced no political backlash from the regions, while the latter has experienced the thawing of traditional party support and rapid rise of an anti-establishment party recently. This lecture compares the politics of peripheralizing areas in both cases, focusing on the discourse – language, assumptions, and ideas held by political actors – about these demographically and economically-challenged regions in the respective countries.

Ken Victor Leonard Hijino is Professor at Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University, and currently guest researcher at Department of Human Geography, Uppsala University. His recent publications include articles for the Journal of Rural Affairs, Electoral Studies, and International Journal of Asian Studies. He is the author of Local Politics and National Policy (Routledge, 2017). He received his PhD from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Cambridge in 2008.