ABSTRACT
In some ways, Japan is the most modern of all countries, creator and prototype of the East Asian ‘economic miracle’. Japan’s resurgence from defeat and devastation in the Second World War is unique. Yet the current politics of this singular modern democracy cannot be understood without going back to the Meiji Restoration, that extraordinary cultural revolution in which the Japanese modernized their feudal society within three decades. This Meiji revolution brought the seeds of democracy to Japan; but also contained within itself some tragic flaws—resulting from the disjuncture of a Western-style nation-state supported by the revival of ancient Japanese racist Shinto ideology. Japan is a remarkably cohesive society—quick to accept innovations in a pragmatic way, yet at the same time extraordinarily protective of ancient customs and social behaviour. The tremendous resurgence of the Japanese economy in the post-war era was matched by a spreading lassitude in politics. The result was an odd kind of one-party government. None the less, the reforms of the US occupation, which revived the earlier impetus of Meiji days, have left Japan as an undoubted democracy where basic personal freedoms and guarantees are uncontested.
