Importan
Japan was acting within its cultural, societal and believed constraints inherited from thousands of years. We cannot hence judge Taisho Democracy by Western, modern standards.
Dramatis personae (aka WHO ARE ALL THESE JAPANESE MEN)
| name | party | political leaning | position | period of office | cabinet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 👤 Ito Hirobumi | Rikken Seiyukai | Founder + Leader of Seiyukai (takes 111 members from Kenseito) | 1900 | ||
| 👤 Saionji Kinmochi | Rikken Seiyukai | liberal, supported parliamentary government (studied in Europe) | Minister of Education; 2nd-3rd Ito administrations | 1894-1986, 1898 | |
| President of Privy Council | 1900 | ||||
| President of Rikken Seiyukai | 1903 | ||||
| Prime Minister of Japan | 1906 Jan-1908 Jul | Saionji I | |||
| 1912 Dec | Saionji II | ||||
| 👤 Emperor Taisho aka Emperor Yoshihito | Emperor of Japan (123rd) | 1912-1926 | |||
| 👤 Hara Kei aka Hara Takashi | Rikken Seiyukai | centrist; master of “politics of compromise” | first Secretary-General of Rikken Seiyukai | 1900 | |
| Leader of Rikken Seiyukai | 1904 | ||||
| Home Minister in several cabinets; tried to implement meritocracy, pushed for infrastructure improvements | 1906-1913 | ||||
| President of Rikken Seiyukai (replacing Saionji Kinmochi) | 1914 | ||||
| Prime Minister of Japan | 1918-1921 | Hara | |||
| 👤 Okuma Shigenobu | Kenseito / Shimpoto (Progressive Party) | centrist; prominent member of Meiji oligarchy + early advocate of Western science and culture | Return to politics at Emperor Taisho’s request | 1914 | |
| 👤 Katsura Taro | Independent | Prime Minister of Japan | 1912-1913 | Katsura III | |
| 👤 Yamamoto | Military (Navy) | Prime Minister of Japan | 1913-1914 | ||
| 👤 Kato Takaaki | Kenseikai | Prime Minister of Japan | 1924 | Kato Takaaki |
- Genro
- unofficial designation given to certain retired Japanese statesmen serving as informal, extra-constitutional imperial advisors
- coined by a newspaper in 1892
- usually conservative
- had the right to select and nominate Prime Ministers to the Emperor for approval
- all from lower- to medium-ranking ex-samurai families, excepting Saionji Kinmochi
- unofficial designation given to certain retired Japanese statesmen serving as informal, extra-constitutional imperial advisors
Meiji Constitution recap
Transclude of 1868-1912-Meiji-Period#^constitution
After the Constitution
- Genro dominated politics
- the Privy Council met in secret and held great influence in the Diet
- bitter parliamentary struggle fed anti-party biases of genro → condemned “partisan” politicians for “blindly” advancing their “narrow, self-serving agendas”
- power struggle between genro and common parties
- political parties sought more power for themselves
- in turn, genro sought to limit party influence → PM Kuroda promoted “transcendental cabinets”
- transcendental cabinets: Japanese cabinets excluding party members from service, since the government was a servant of the sovereign emperor and not the people
- promoted by 👤 PM Kuroda
- men of national stature had to be appointed as state ministers, so that cabinets “could always steadfastly transcend and stand apart from political parties, and thus follow the path of righteousness”
- “right” is to serve the emperor (and quietly, themselves)
- (go girl give us Nothing…)
- BUT! genro were forced to rethink their stand
- might derail the democratic experiment
- might earn the West's censure, who were already “question[ing] the stability of constitutional government for the Orient” → harming Japan’s international relations → dooming attempts to revise unequal treaties with Western nations
- a huge part of the reason they converted to democracy in the first place
Defining Taisho Democracy
- a slow, gradual evolution; not a revolution to embrace democracy
- 1912-1926: rule of 👤 Emperor Taisho aka Yoshihito
- 1905-1932: traditional definition by historians of the Taisho democratic era
- 1918: 👤 Hara Kei/Takashi succeeded Terauchi as PM → marked advent of party government
- first to be headed by an elected member of a majority party in the Lower House (Seiyukai party)
- normalized the appointment of winning party leaders as PM
- 1924: 👤 Kato Takaaki’s appointment to PM
- 📈 1924-1932: 7 successive cabinets formed by political parties → laid foundation for genuine party politics
- 1929: Great Depression – a blow to Japanese political parties?
- rise in liberal thought and liberalism
- e.g. 👤 Yoshino Sakuzo, 👤 Minobe Tatsukichi (“organ theory”)
- political and social reforms carried out under Hara Kei, Kato Takaaki – signifiance to development of democracy in Japan?
- rise of 2-party system
- 1913: formation of Doshikai, known as Kinseikai (1916) and Minseito (1927)
- shifts away from oligrachs/genro to political parties
- new ways of thinking flourished, social movements strengthened
- political rule by elected politicians who formed cabinets run by party members took hold during this time
- period characterized by liberalism
Structure (bicameral Diet)
Importan
Assess the extent of democracy by comparing democratic elements in theory to how democratic they were in practice.
- insert Japanese political structure diagram here
- remnants of the feudal classes remained
- House of Peers (Upper House): made up of elites, extremely conservative, intended to check liberalizing pressures from the House of Representatives, appointed by the emperor
- e.g. hereditary peerage created in 1885, males in imperial family, highest taxpayers
- positions were by appointment → they all ‘owed’ the emperor for their appointment
- House of Representatives (Lower House): made up of primarily landlords and (1/3) former samurai, elected representatives
- 📈 300 seats across 257 districts
- “a sprinkling of businessmen and former bureaucrats… urban professionals such as journalists, publishers, lawyers” (Gordon)
- still privileged, but not as much as the House of Peers
- both houses shared similar powers: to pass laws, approve government annual budget
- debated on numerous issues, e.g.:
- expansion of electorate
- 1900: government lowered the tax qualification for voting from 15 to 10 yen per household → doubled electorate from 1% to 2% (aka 📈 a 100% increase 🤣)
- health and conditions of factory workers
- 1911: the very weak Factory Act passed
- foreign policy
- direction of tax revenue – the army/navy, or local projects?
- expansion of electorate
Western vs Taisho Democracy
| Western | Taisho |
|---|---|
| supreme power is vested in the people, and exercised directly by them/elected representatives | Emperor is sacred and inviolable, with significant powers |
| Privy Council, Cabinet, Diet and General Staff exercise political authority | |
| House of Representatives elected by the people | 2% of the population votes for the House of Representatives |
| government by the people, for the people, over the people | Emperor retains sovereignty, appoints Privy Council and House of Peers |
| debates before legislation passes | debates before legislation passes |
| practiced in U.S.A, UK, France | practiced in Japan |
Maturation of Taisho democracy
- 1898 June: Rise of Kenseito
- Kenseito: Party, founded by 👤 Okuma Shigenobu
- merger between the Shimpoto + Jiyuto → majority of Lower House
- won 260/300 seats in 1898 elections
- Party collapsedd dinternally
- reaffirmed Ito’s notion of including party politicians in Cabinets
- fulfilled the constitution, entrusting the bureaucracy & military to help with important functions
- bureaucrats to write and implement legislation
- military to protect nation
- Ito believed that the PM’s ability to govern successfully was maximized by a mix of party members, civil bureaucrats and military officers
- in other words, a closer approximation to democracy
- Kenseito: Party, founded by 👤 Okuma Shigenobu
- 1900: Ito Hirobumi organizes Seiyukai, taking 111 members from the Kenseito
- 1904: Hara Kei/Hara Takashi takes over as leader of SEiyukai
- well-to-do son of a former samurai family
- master of "politics of compromise" – traded party support for the governmental budget for political goods (e.g. cabinet positions for party members)
- ensured public spending in member districts for roads, harbor improvements, schools, railroad lines, etc
- served to increase the power of elected politicans and political parties
- 1904: Hara Kei supports Katsura’s wartime budget in exchange for promise that the Seiyukai president 👤 Prince Saionji would be the next Prime Minister
- Katsura honored this promise
- 1900-1912: Seiyukai becomes the only effective party in the Diet
- Seiyukai: Rikken Seiyukai, Friends of the Constitutional Government
- PMs ruled by making alliances with the Seiyukai
- the Seiyukai had members in every cabinet → more cohesive and bureaucratic
- a turning point in the Taisho Political Crisis
- as Home Minister, Hara Kei advanced careers of ministry bureaucrats who pledged allegiance to the Seiyukai
- in return, these men policed local and national elections → Seiyukai had a huge boost at the polls
- basically, “politics of compromise again” – Hara Kei made it worth their while to support the Seiyukai party, making it indispensable to Japan’s political system
1912-1913 Taisho Political Crisis
1600-1997 Japan, 🇯🇵 1912-1926 Taisho Democracy
- 3 different prime ministers in this period, each trying to restore the balance between genro1
- Saionji, Katsura, Yamamoto
- 1912 November: 👤 PM Saionji Kinmochi, forced by economic circumstances to choose between two new military divisions or Seiyukai domestic programme, refuses funding for army
- army minister resigns in protest
- military refuses to supply a replacement → cabinet cannot be formed
- by law, ministers of army and navy need to be active-duty officers
- Saionji, unable to form a cabinet, resigns
- it’s giving Liz Truss
- press and intellectuals viewed the military’s tactics as “an affront to constitutional government”
- 1912: Formation of the League for the Protection of the Constitution by opposition parties, intellectuals, elite businessmen
- second Saionji Cabinet is succeeded by the third Katsura Cabinet after multiple politicians turn down the invitation
- they read the writing on the wall…
- Katsura refused to compromise with the Seiyukai and failed to organise a coalition strong enough to take any meaningful action
- this move caused his opponents to joint he unusually-vigorous Movement to Protect Constitutional Government (the liberal values exemplifying Taisho Democracy)
- 1913 February: Rallies are well-attended and manifestoes are given; reaches a peak
- Katsura tried to remove Yamagata Aritomo (influential genro) – his attempt was viewed as a selfish attempt to consolidate power for himself
- public perception of him nosedived further; he was thought of as a Choshu general perpetuating oligarchic rule (he’s basically Palpatine)
- the navy proceeded to demand battleships and refused to furnish a minister without them → Katsura, at his wit’s end, gets the emperor to issue an imperial edict forcing them to name a minister
- the public viewed this as an opposition to the services and undemocratic/high-handed use of the Emperor’s imperial abilities
- Cabinet was condemned in and out of the Diet
- Seiyukai had their hands tied by their earlier pledge to support Katsura; they sat out of it until Katsura founded his own party
- to begin with, Katsura was extremely unpopular and his original party lacked a Diet majority
- 1913: Seiyukai called for a ==vote of no-confidence== (first in Japanese history); Katsura had no hopeof winning
- Hara Takashi wrote in his diary that he feared a “practically revolutionary riot will occur” if Katsura didn’t resign
- 1913: Katsura resigns, crisis ends.
Aftermath
- surviving oligarchs Yamagata, Matsukata, Saionji asked a navyman Yamamoto Gonnohyoe aka Yamamoto Gonbee to form a new cabinet – with a place for the Seiyukai
- Hara Kei accepted three posts for existing Seiyukai politicians, and three extra sympathetic ministers
- four critical posts belonged to non-partymen – prime minister, army and navy ministers, foreign minister
- Yamamoto made key concessions to Hara Kei to revise regulations that gave the military such outsize power to begin with:
- retired military men could be army/navy ministers
- extended the reach of party influence – the vice-minister was now a political appointment, like the minister
- reduced budget & cut size of bureaucracy
- supporters of the Movement were bitterly disappointed – they viewed Hara Takashi as a sellout for allying with the Satsuma-clique leader + contrary to their demand and several-month struggle to “overthrow the government”
- the Diet’s power was clear – political representatives could no longer ignore them
- Katsura also formed the Doshikai party hastily; its fortunes would later look up
Link to original Footnotes
Elder statesmen. ↩
dump
Successes
- free elections
- PM chosen from the victorious political party
- Lower House elected by the Japanese people
- proposed legislation has to pass both Houses before becoming law
Failures
Summar
Not a democracy, in the sense that the common people cannot hold the ruling class accountable.
- 📉 Only 1.1% of the population allowed to vote (low suffrage)
- rights and privileges not unconditional
- 4 main bodies were mutually exclusive
- General Staff has veto over cabinet
- Privy Council had large influence over decisions made
- Cabinet reported and consulted with genro before making decisions
- genro: old officials, appointed elder statemen (i.e. older ministers)
- typically given fluid roles and responsibilities
- functioned as special advisers
- genro: old officials, appointed elder statemen (i.e. older ministers)
- Emperor still held all power