ABSTRACT
Japan experienced democratization twice: during the pre-World War II period and in the postwar period. Both were associated with the process of state building (in the case of the postwar period, state-rebuilding) and economic development. Prewar democracy took a long time to develop, and when it was established as the “Taisho Democracy,” it was short-lived. Postwar democracy was established under foreign occupation but has endured since. The primary purpose of this chapter is to analyze how state-building and democratization developed in Japan over two different periods and to explain why the nature and the longevity of the two democracies differ. This chapter will also examine how the economic development of modern Japan interacted with state building and democratization in complex ways. The effort to build a modern state inadvertently created pressures for democratization while the establishment of a stable state helped foster economic development during the Meiji period. The resultant semi-democracy and economic development in turn created pressures for further democratization. However, the breakdown of prewar democracy demonstrates that economic development did not guarantee the endurance of democracy because state building during the Meiji period had left political and ideational legacies that were ultimately detrimental to democracy. The success of postwar democracy is largely due to the fundamental transformation of these legacies.
