Political Institutions Essays - Politics Of Asia, Politics

Political Institutions Japan 1. The 1947 Japanese constitution was imposed by the United States and its Occupation Authority after its victory in WWII. The constitution seeks to construct a system of representative democracy, with the emperor remains the head of state, but merely as a ceremonial figure. The constitution guarantees the fundamental rights of citizens and also pledges that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained," but this provision has not prevented the government from building "self-defense forces," which was actually allowed to expand during the Cold-War U.S. and Soviet confrontation. 2. The legislature: Japan is a parliamentary system in contrast to the US presidential system. The Japanese parliament is the Diet, which consists of two Houses--the House of Representative and the House of Councillors. The primary power in the Diet rests with the lower house. Although the Diet is bicameral (a bill becomes law only when it is passed by both chambers), the lower house has the power to override, by a two-thirds vote for a second time, any attempt by the upper house to negate actions of the lower house. Moreover, the lower house chooses the prime minister and has virtual control of the budgeting process. In general, when the upper house makes a decision different from the lower house and when no agreement can be reached or when the upper house fails to take final action within a certain time, the decision of the lower house becomes that of the Diet. These are all general features of parliamentary forms of government similar to those found in all parliamentary systems. 3. Executive, parliamentary, and judicial relationships: US political system is based upon separation of powers which have checks and balances on each other, whereas Japan's political system, which is similar to the British tradition, is based on the fusion of powers, stressing more cohesion between the executive and legislative functions. The tradition of consensus seeking is deeply rooted in Japan's political culture which is collectivistically based. The head of executive power (the Prime Minister) is indirectly elected by the parliament and he is the leader of the majority party in the parliament who names a cabinet that runs the various state ministries and carries out the policy of the majority party. The cabinet is recruited from the Diet and is largely made up of senior members of the majority party or members of coalition parties in the absence of a one-party majority. Both the prime minister and the cabinet members are responsible to the Diet, and all ministers must resign en masse if the House passes a no-confidence resolution or rejects a confidence motion. All supreme court justices, except the Chief Justice who is designated by the cabinet and nominally appointed by the Emperor (a symbolic figurehead), are appointed by the cabinet without the disguise of a bow to the Emperor. The Supreme Court, however, like the U.S. counterpart, enjoys the power of judicial review and can declare the legislation unconstitutional. 4. Power structure: Japan is traditionally a centralized bureaucratic state modeled on the Chinese Confucian tradition and such a structure remains in today's Japan. US is federal system, the state power protected by the constitution, and the states are more autonomous, whereas Japan is unitary system, local governments (47 prefectures or counties) and their policies are largely controlled by the central government and can be modified by the central government on the nationwide base. For example, local police and school issues are overseen by centralized administrative boards. Borrowing by local governments must be approved by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is the national agency that oversees local governments. 5. Electoral system: after 1994, the House of Representative has 500 members. 200 are elected by the proportional representation system and 300 are elected from single-seat constituencies or single-member-district plurality system. The House of Councillors has 252 members who serve six- year terms, but half of the total number is elected every three years. That is to say, the Japanese electoral system is similar to that of Germany, which is a combination of plurality and proportional representative systems. In both houses, voters have two votes in elections, one for a party and the other for an individual. 6. Party system: The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) used to dominate Japanese politics from 1955 to 1993, although many other parties did exist, such as New Frontier Party, Democratic Party of Japan, Japan Communist Party, Social Democratic Party, and other smaller parties. However, Japan's one-party domination was shattered by the 1993 election, which produced no clear majority