ABSTRACT
Japan has the longest-established democracy in Asia. Its first parliament was founded in 1891 and political parties had already been established by then. Although it was supplanted by political and military extremists in the 1930s, democracy was re-established immediately after the Second World War on the command of the Allied administration. Since then it has prospered, as has the country. Even this shorter period of existence would make it the longest-lived democracy in continental Asia, pre-dating that of India by two years. How far, therefore, might its experience have lessons to offer to more recent democratizing regimes?
