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Constitutional Exchange in Japan: From Shogunate to Parliamentary Democracy

This paper uses some recent work from constitutional political economy to analyze the politics of Japan as it shifted from a medieval empire or federation to a modern parliamentary state in the late nineteenth century. The analysis suggests that the Tokugawa period, the Meiji restoration, and its transition to constitutional monarchy can be understood as settings in which a good deal of constitutional exchange took place. This is not to say that all changes in Japanese history are lawful constitutional reforms or motivated by obvious self-interest, but is to say that constitutional negotiations and self-interest are important determinants of constitutional reform. Even in cases in which military threats are important considerations, resistance to change can be reduced by attempting to find reforms that advance mutual interests and minimize unproductive conflict. The alignment of liberal political and economic interests that produced democracies in many European countries was not quite sufficient to do so in Japan in the 1920s. On the other hand, they clearly produced substantial liberalization of Japanese governance in the half century that followed the Meiji restoration.