RG

IN CONTEXT

IDEOLOGY

Consititutional monarchy

FOCUS

Modernization

BEFORE

1600 Establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate by Ieyasu brings to an end two centuries of internal conflict.

1688 The Glorious Revolution brings about a constitutional monarchy in Britain.

1791 The French constitutional monarchy, in which King Louis XVI shares power with the Legislative Assembly, fails.

1871–1919 Germany becomes a federation of states, each with its own monarch.

AFTER

1901 The new Commonwealth of Australia adopts a federal constitutional monarchy.

2008 Bhutan becomes a constitutional monarchy.

From the 17th to the 19th centuries, strict isolation and rigorously controlled trade kept Japan closed to the outside world. That changed when Commodore Matthew Perry forced the Japanese to sign a trade deal with the US in 1853. A national crisis ensued, and a section of Japan’s feudal rulers—the shoguns—including Prince Ito Hirobumi, began to argue for radical reforms to preserve Japan’s independence, using Western models of society. But a society as distinctive as Japan’s could not easily switch to Western modes of rule. Instead, under the guise of returning the emperor to power, an alliance of powerful reformers, including Hirobumi, overthrew the shogunate in 1867, proclaiming a new imperial rule. Samurai were disarmed, feudal lands turned over to the state, and caste divisions abolished.

"Since government is concerned with the administration of the country, it does not follow that its acts are always favorable to all individuals."

Ito Hirobumi

Meiji Constitution

The leaders of this revolt wanted to unite Western advances with traditional Japanese virtues. Hirobumi drafted the 1890 Meiji Constitution, in which the emperor remained as head of state and focal point for the nation, but government was exercised by a cabinet of ministers. As with constitutional monarchies elsewhere, it was hoped this would provide a “central axis” for Japanese society on which it could advance as a whole. In fact, the constitution provided the framework for Japan’s economic and military development over the next 60 years.

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