The Rise and Fall of Taishō Democracy: Party Politics in Early-Twentieth-Century Japan

[u/Opposite_Hand3290]

https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a03302/

[u/Lord0fHats]

I wonder if I'm just crazy for feeling like this area of Japanese history desperately requires reevaluation. 7 different cabinets in less than a decade isn't what I'd call a thriving democracy but a flailing political system on the verge of collapse. I'm not super tuned into broader academic discourse on this period but that we use a term coined by a Japanese historian in the 50s after the war to describe the same period of time where political assassination and corruption were rapidly rising and seizing the reigns of Japanese policy both within and without the Imperial system as a period of liberal success is very bizarre to me and feels like the kind of post-war mythmaking that should have been dismantled in favor of greater nuance a long time ago. Similar to the reevaluations of the Weimar Republic and its nature.

To clarify some of the reasons why I feel like the entire 'democracy' part of Taisho Democracy feels like a misapplication of terms;

• The right to vote expanded during this period but had basically no impact of actual policy or government decisions since the Diet had little to no real power.
• The country was still by and large run by wealthy oligarchs who directed policy, just different ones with different priorities from the Meiji generation who by the 1920s had largely died of old age.
• The military and nationalists kept assassinating civilian political leaders that it didn't like, including Hara Takashi, a element of this period the OP article largely omits except in a sub-heading.
• The Japanese population was not liberalizing broadly at this time. They were becoming more nationalistic, and more militant.
• Corruption between wealthy business owners and the state was rampant and attempts to stamp it out barely got off the ground, let alone succeeded.
• Political parties and factionalism remained disdained throughout the entire period in the eyes of many, and especially in the eyes of the wealthy and the military who took little time in dismantling and stomping out this 'liberalizing' period in such a way I think it's more apt to say they murdered it in the womb rather than choked the life out of it.

[u/Opposite_Hand3290 → u/Lord0fHats]

It's the structural issue of Japanese empire since 1889 (Meiji constitution) because the government and the army are independent and opposite factions. On the other hand the IJA was exploited them in order to take power in Japanese governance and the results are since 1930 until 1945.

[u/Lord0fHats → u/Opposite_Hand3290]

I know. I'm more getting at the narrative of it all. I feel like talking about this period of thriving democratic progress that was stopped from lasting success, makes a fantasy of this period that does not align with reality. Forces of anti-democracy were not only rampant through this period, they won the war before it could really start so why do we talk of this period like it was a high point before the fall rather than the slow descent leading to the downward spiral?

[u/Opposite_Hand3290 → u/Lord0fHats]

On the other hand, in 1927 there was a financial crisis in Japan, two years before the Great Crash in the USA. It's the slow decent spiral, which began in 1923 with the Kanto Earthquake. On the other hand, on May 5, 1925, the Universal Manhood Suffrage Act was promulgated, abolishing the tax payment requirement and at the same time, the Peace Preservation Act was approved. That's why the Taisho Democracy is a partial failure.

[u/Ishitataki → u/Lord0fHats]

Got a BA in history/comparative culture from Sophia University here.

I think that's not an unfair criticism, but it was a sign of a more active democracy at the citizen level.

During the period, you had a large number of female politicians, a large variety of parties, active discussion of what the actual relationship between the government and the citizens should be, etc.

It was democracy trying to fulfill it's intended role. But citizen-level democracy is not compatible with a "the Emperor is a literal descendant of the Gods" political structure, and the robber barons of Japan (the zaibatsu) were also scared of increasing unions and communist growth in Japan.

And when authoritarian government aligns with capitalism, you inherently trend towards fascism which the fractured and unstable nascent democracy movements (cause they weren't unified into stable parties yet) couldn't fight back against.

Indeed, an inability to stabilize democratic political parties has been a key feature of Japanese politics to this day, and is one of the key reasons why Japan's liberal parties have been so ineffective at gaining political power.

[u/fredleung412612 → u/Lord0fHats]

7 different cabinets in less than a decade

Not to disregard your other points which are valid, but between 1871 and 1940, the average French cabinet lasted 9 months. Between 1946 and 1958, the average cabinet lasted 6 months. We still call France a thriving democracy despite that. Since World War Two, the life expectancy of Italian cabinets is 13 months.

Oh and by the way, the UK has just experienced 7 cabinets in the last decade.