Jap Politics essays

Jap Politics essays According to Webster democracy is a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodic elections. The question at hand is does this apply to Japan, or more specifically postwar Japan? If this isnt what Japan has then what type of government do they have? Garon and Mochizuki argue that it has been a managed form of democracy. What exactly is a managed democracy? These are the questions that I hope to answer. Garon and Mochizuki were describing the business like structure of the Japanese political system when they called it a managed democracy. This means that the democracy in Japan is a somewhat controlled system. The people dont really have any power; the members of the Diet control the government on their own terms. What they are basically saying is Japan doesnt really have a democracy, but if thats what it must be called then it should have the managed tagged to it for warning. Are Garon and Mochizuki correct in their statement? Yes, I believe that they have accurately described how Japans government operates. Japan uses a system of Democracy, that doesnt really fit the definition. The supreme power is supposed to be vested in the people, but this isnt the case. They do have elected officials, but the Diet hasnt always had power, even now they dont hold all of the cards. The bureaucracy has had all the power in the past. There has been a slight change in this respect in recent years, but they still hold a great deal of power, which isnt very democratic considering they have no ties to the electorate. Also when one party is in power for thirty years it is hard to have a democratic system flourish. The LDP ruled Japan for what seems like an eternity, and in all that time Japan was definitely a managed democracy....