02 May 2018
WP310 | Theocracy vs Constitutionalism in Japan: Constitutional Amendment and the Return of Pre-war Shinto Nationalism
Abstract
This paper offers an understanding of the scope, nature, and context of constitutional change being proposed in Japan today, in internal terms rather than through external reconstruction. Rather than being a mere reaction to “external circumstances”, as portrayed by its apologists and by “realist/rational-reconstructionist” analysis, the movement to amend and replace the Constitution is a project with a history, underpinned by a worldview and driven by an ideology that provide it with its own momentum. The most overlooked aspect of the movement is religion. From the Meiji Restoration until the end of the War, Japan was governed through a religio-political system based on a newly invented State Shintoism. The scope and intent of today’s movement to amend/replace the Constitution cannot be understood without this background in mind. Failure to account for the ideological, cultural, historical, and indeed the constitutional dimensions of the issue seriously underplays the stakes for Japan and its neighbours. The constitutional movement is part of a multi-generational project to restore what its leaders declare to be the “true shape of Japan”, with the pre-war religious ideology and constitutional form that they deem to have been unjustly replaced by the US occupation administration after Japan’s defeat.
About the Author
Naoko Kumada (PhD, MA, LL.M., LL.B.) is Adjunct Fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). She received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Keio University, with a concentration in the Japanese Constitution. After studying the historical transition of the Burmese legal system from that of Buddhist kingships to the British common law for her Master’s degree, she completed her PhD in Social Anthropology on the religious practice of Burmese Buddhists at the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining RSIS, she taught at the Stanford Center for Buddhist Studies, Stanford University, where she worked with graduate students studying Japanese and Southeast Asian religions.
Abstract
This paper offers an understanding of the scope, nature, and context of constitutional change being proposed in Japan today, in internal terms rather than through external reconstruction. Rather than being a mere reaction to “external circumstances”, as portrayed by its apologists and by “realist/rational-reconstructionist” analysis, the movement to amend and replace the Constitution is a project with a history, underpinned by a worldview and driven by an ideology that provide it with its own momentum. The most overlooked aspect of the movement is religion. From the Meiji Restoration until the end of the War, Japan was governed through a religio-political system based on a newly invented State Shintoism. The scope and intent of today’s movement to amend/replace the Constitution cannot be understood without this background in mind. Failure to account for the ideological, cultural, historical, and indeed the constitutional dimensions of the issue seriously underplays the stakes for Japan and its neighbours. The constitutional movement is part of a multi-generational project to restore what its leaders declare to be the “true shape of Japan”, with the pre-war religious ideology and constitutional form that they deem to have been unjustly replaced by the US occupation administration after Japan’s defeat.
About the Author
Naoko Kumada (PhD, MA, LL.M., LL.B.) is Adjunct Fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). She received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Keio University, with a concentration in the Japanese Constitution. After studying the historical transition of the Burmese legal system from that of Buddhist kingships to the British common law for her Master’s degree, she completed her PhD in Social Anthropology on the religious practice of Burmese Buddhists at the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining RSIS, she taught at the Stanford Center for Buddhist Studies, Stanford University, where she worked with graduate students studying Japanese and Southeast Asian religions.
