Understanding anti-immigration attitudes in Japan: exploring the role of symbolic threat perception and nationalism

This study examines the factors shaping symbolic threat perception and its relationship with anti-immigrant attitudes. While previous research has shown that perceiving immigrants as threats to national culture, security, or public order is closely linked to anti-immigration sentiment, the mechanisms underlying symbolic threat perception remain insufficiently explored. Focusing on Japan—a context with limited far-right mobilization and a relatively small immigrant population—this study uses survey data to analyze the role of nationalism in structuring symbolic threat perceptions. Nationalism is conceptualized broadly to include both hot nationalism and banal nationalism. The findings show that symbolic threat perceptions are strongly associated with anti-immigration attitudes and that differences across immigrant groups are not primarily driven by immigrants’ origins. Overall, the study demonstrates that a broader conceptualization of nationalism provides a more comprehensive understanding of how anti-immigrant sentiment is discursively structured.