Japanese Politics

Hi again everyone!

Last week, I mentioned how the Emperor is not the ruler of Japan in modern times. Instead, the country is run by a parliamentary system that is very similar to Great Britain. To help you understand how Japan does politics differently from the US, this week's blog is going to be about Japan's political system!

Japan's parliament, pictured in their meeting place, the National Diet Building.

Japan's Parliament

During the Meiji Restoration, when Japan realized it needed to catch up with Europe and America and it needed to do so NOW, Japan sent people to the various powerful nations of the time, such as France, Britain, and America, to study how their governments worked. Since France had recently gone through the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and seemed to be having trouble deciding how it wanted itself to be run and since America had never had to deal with the balance of power between royalty and elected officials, Japan decided to model itself after Britain's government. To do so, Japan set up its Constitution to allow for a democratically elected representative Parliament to create and debate over laws and policies, but with the understanding that everything they did had to be in alignment with the Emperor's will. If the Emperor did not want a certain law to pass, it didn't. If the Emperor wanted a Prime Minister to resign, they usually did so within the day. And if an Emperor wanted to go to war with another country, it was up to Parliament to figure out how to win it.

A general diagram of the balance of power under the Meiji Constitution. This setup
allowed the armed forces to have a high level of control over lawmaking and even influence
the Emperor's decisions, which was one of the factors that led to World War II. 

However, after WWII America removed the Emperor from political power by scrapping the Meiji Constitution and convincing Japan to accept a new constitution, which is today known as the Postwar Constitution. This meant that Parliament, which the Postwar Constitution upheld, would now be free to create laws and make decisions about what the country should do without being under the influence of the Emperor.  Because of this, Parliament remains the main driving force behind Japanese policy. There are two Houses that make up Parliament, similar to how the US has the House of Representatives and the Senate. The first, which is the larger of the two and considered to be the more powerful, is made up of 465 members and is also known as the House of Representatives. The second, known as the House of Councillors, is not as powerful since it only has 245 members, but can override the decision of the House of Representatives and force them to reconsider, much like how in America the President has the power to veto bills that come to him from Congress. Additionally, the Prime Minister of Japan is able to dissolve the House of Representatives, but cannot do so for the House of Councillors.

It is comprised of not just two, but nine different parties that all represent different ideals for how Japan should be. The largest and most dominant is the Liberal Democratic Party, a right-wing group that has held power through an overwhelming majority in both the House of Representatives (currently 285 members) and the House of Councillors (currently 113 members) since its foundation in 1955 through today, only losing power for four years out of the 65 total it has been around. The other eight parties often have to rally together if they want to oppose a decision the LDP wants to make, but since they each have different goals, this happens very rarely in recent years. Other prominent parties include the Constitutional Democratic Party, which is a left-wing party that is the LDP's main opposition but has less than a quarter of their membership, and the Democratic Party for the People, which sometimes agrees with the LDP and sometimes doesn't. My favorite party out of the nine parties is The Party to Protect the People from NHK, a party that consists of one member in the House of Representatives and one member in the House of Councillors, and whose sole purpose is to end the mandatory fee that all Japanese people have to pay for access to the public television company known as NHK.

Top image is the House of Councillors, bottom is the House of Representatives.
The seats held by the LDP are shown by the dark green dots.

The Executive Branch

Under the Meiji Constitution, the Executive Branch was made up of the Emperor and a small group of advisers that was known as the Cabinet. However, while nowadays the Emperor is still technically considered part of the Executive Branch, because he holds no political power the Executive Branch is now simply the Cabinet, a group of nineteen people consisting of the Prime Minister and the people he chooses to be on the Cabinet with him. The job of the Executive Branch is to make sure that everything goes smoothly in governing the nation and to be in charge of foreign affairs as representatives of Japan. Prime Ministers are traditionally chosen based on the leader of the party with the highest majority in Parliament, which means that the Prime Minister is almost always the leader of the LDP. Currently, the Prime Minister of Japan is a man named Shinzo Abe.

Shinzo Abe giving a speech. Interestingly, though he is the Prime Minister, Abe is
part of a group that wants the Emperor to become the leader of Japan, like it was
during World War II.

The Judicial Branch

When compared to America's Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Japan has much less power and influence. Whereas America's Supreme Court will judge controversial cases in a way that affects laws and policy across the nation, Japan's Supreme Court does not. According to the Postwar Constitution, Japan's Supreme Court has the capability to have a similar level of importance in governing the nation as America's does, but in practice, the Court only judges cases that reaffirm already existing policy. In the entire history of the Postwar Supreme Court, it has only judged a total of eight cases as unconstitutional, despite explicitly being designed to rule on the constitutionality of laws. Germany's post-World War II Supreme Court, which was established several years later, has struck down over 600. Members are appointed by the Cabinet, and are on the Court for as long as they are mentally and physically fit to carry out their duties. This means that since the Cabinet (i.e. the Prime Minister) appoints judges, judges on the Court are chosen by whatever group has the majority in Parliament, which may explain their record when it comes to shaping the nation through judicial practice. Currently, the Court consists of fifteen members, led by Chief Justice Naoto Otani.

Japan's Supreme Court, in session.

There are many similarities between the governments of America and of post-WWII Japan, but there are also as many differences. It's astonishing to me how one party is able to totally dominate the political process in Japan, especially when compared to British Parliament, the model for the current government, which changes leadership constantly. I hope I've been able to give you an introduction to how government works in another country! Until next week,

またね！(See you soon!)