Japan Political System

Japan is a constitutional monarchy like British government, which is a parliamentary democracy country with ceremonial emperor. The Empire of Japan was dissolved in Japan’s 1947 constitution. After the defeat of Japan in the Second World War, the Japanese political system was being constructed, which is based on the principles of sovereignty that respect human rights and the encouragement of peace. According to separation of powers, the political system of Japan officially divided into executive, legislative and judicial branches. This essay will discuss and classify the political system of Japan, followed by the argument whether Japan is better to describe as a democracy or a monarchy.

The monarch, in other words, the Emperor is the head of state and no longer holds a real power. The role Emperor of Japan is the symbol of the country and focuses for unity of the people. The head of government and Cabinet is the prime minister who holds the executive power. The prime minster has the right to nominate the Cabinet members. The Cabinet is composed of prime minster and ministers of state, which is responsible to the National Diet. The main political power is held by the prime minister and the elected members of the National Diet. The prime minister is elected with winning a majority vote in the National Diet through single-member plurality for a 4-year term. Single-member plurality refers the candidate win most votes on the first in the election that only ballot in each single-member district.

Legislative power is vested in the National Diet which consists of an upper house, named the House of Councillors, and a lower house, named the House of Representatives. The House of Councillors is composed of 242 members for 6-year term. The House of Representatives is the powerful house in National Diet and comprised of 480 members for 4-year term. The national Diet is designated as the highest organ of state power that the political responsibility is decided by elected legislature. Unlike the political system of Japan in wartime, the political responsibility was rested with the emperor and a cabinet (Ishida and Krauss 1989:39).

The Supreme Court is the highest judicial branch that is independent. The judicial members are nominated by the emperor with the agreement of prime minister and cabinet. The major function of Supreme Court is to settle the legal disputes by establishing judicial polices and rules for lower courts. The judicial conference consists of 15 members, which is responsible for decision-making about proposing rules and regulations and in charge of the general secretariats of the Supreme Courts (Itoh 2010:40-41).

Japanese political system can be classified as democratic country. Liberal democracy refers a system of government that is elected through free and fair election and limited by law to place on the power of democratically elected government (Hague and Harrop 2010:84). For instance, The House of Representatives in comprised of 480 members. In 480 seats, 300 seats are elected from single-member voters and the other 180 seats are elected 11 multi-member voters by a system of proportional representation. Proportional representation means the number of seats won by a party is proportionate to the number of votes received (Hague and Harrop 2010:184). The House of Representatives can be dissolved by the no confidence vote of the Prime Minister or a Cabinet. 242 seats of the House of Councillors, 146 seats are elected by electoral district system and the remaining 96 seats are elected based on a proportional representation system (Schoppa 2011:47). A half of members from the House of Councillors are re-elected every three years by parallel voting system. Parallel voting is two separate elections without mechanism to get a proportional result (Diamond and Plattner 2006:205).

Another feature of liberal democracy is to prevent the government from becoming too powerful. The executive, legislative and judicial powers in Japan’s political system are separated. The judicial is totally independent (Dean 2002:347). Unlike the independent judiciary in most of the western countries, the independent judiciary in Japan is the principle that judicial power of a state is to be implemented independently and fairly by the courts (Goodman 2008:191-193). Even the head of government cannot use his power to control the judicial system.The separation of power of Japan’s government is to avoid the abuse of power. Moreover, based on the Article 20 of Japanese law, Japanese citizens are free to choose their religions. It reflects one of the features of liberal democracy that is to ensure the minorities not being repressed by majority. For example, Christian cannot repress Muslin. All the people deserve equal chance to choose the religion.

The advantage of separation of power is to prevent the members of the National Diet or the government become too big and abuse the power. In addition, the different branches will regulate the members from other branches. However, there are some drawbacks. The disadvantage of complying with separation of power affects the effectiveness of implementation of the legislation. The process of implementing the policy is rather rigid.

One of the significant features of liberal democracy is that the individual human rights are being guaranteed. According to article 21 the Japanese law, Japanese enjoys wide ranges of rights and freedoms. One of the ‘rights and freedoms of the spirit’ is that Japanese enjoys freedom of assembly and association as well as speech; press and all other forms of expression are guaranteed (Foote 2007:263). These are the examples of rights that should be guaranteed.

Nevertheless, some people argue that whether is better describing Japan as a monarchy or a democracy. Japan still has the emperor as the head of state although it is a liberal democratic country with all the features about liberal democracy.

A monarchy represents that a government is ruled by only one single absolute hereditary ruler. The ruler held an absolute power in hand. The Japan in pre-wartime was a monarchy. The monarch is the emperor, known as Tennō, who had the whole political power to make the decisions of the whole country. However, the defeat of Second World War led to the Japan’s government reconstructed. The political system reform led to the change from a monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. The form of modern Japan’s government is belonging to constitutional monarchy. That is different from a monarchy. Constitutional monarchy refers to separate out the duties of the head of state and the head of government. The head of state is only ceremonial in nature and their political power is very little, even they no longer have the political power. While the head of government is the prime minister and his cabinets, all the decisions of a country are drawn by the head of government and the national Diet. According to Aristotle’s the classification of governments (Kelsen 2009:283), a government ruled by one ruler is monarchy while a government ruled by many rulers is a called democracy. The parliamentary government reflects that the government is ruled by all rulers, which is a democracy. Unlike a monarchy, is ruled by only one ruler.

It is clearly show that Japan is better described as a democracy. Aristotle’s classification based on two dimensions which are the number of people involved governing. It captured the extent of involvement in a political system. Besides, the second dimension is whether rulers governed by common interest or in their own interests. Although the emperor of Japan still exists, the emperor has no political power to control the government by himself. Only the head of government can exercise the political power and the national Diet is the highest decision-maker as the national Diet holds the most political power. Moreover, the political system of Japan is divided into three branches, including executive, judicial and legislative branches. Each branches composed of a large group of people to make decisions and handle national activities. All the decisions are made by the constitution instead of the emperor in Japan. As the emperor in Japan has no political power, Japan cannot be described as a monarchy.

Overall speaking, Japan is a parliamentary government with ceremonial emperor and it is a liberal democracy based on the theory of Aristotle. Liberal democracy is free to express the views as well as the individual rights are being protected. In addition, people in Japan can enjoy freedom of expressions and they will have a free and fair election to select the preferred government. These are the main features of a liberal democracy. Furthermore, Japan is better to describe as a democracy rather than a monarchy. Since the emperor has no real political power and the government consists of a large group of people to handle different kinds of national activities, such as establish and pass new policy, international cooperation and make decisions. The political power of a country is being separated into different constitutions, which means all rulers, such as legislature, executive council and judicial courts, control the government.