Japan is now in a state of what Bruce Ackerman called “constitutional politics“. In past five years, the ruling coalition of PM Shinzo Abe’s LDP and Komeito has won all national elections and secured supermajority in both houses of the Diet, thus meeting the requirement of proposing amendment to the Constitution. The Prime Minister has...
Concentration of Wealth and Democracy under the Japanese Constitution
In the 70 years since the war, Japan has been a stable democratic country. It can be said that its success has been based on postwar economic reform. The problem is the relationship between such economic reform and guarantee of property rights. The Supreme Court of Japan has held that such economic reforms are constitutional...
The Academic Response to the Constitutional Zone of Twilight
Japan’s postwar constitution is reaching in the zone of twilight–Tasogaredoki or Ōmagatoki in Japanese. As “Your Name “(Kimi no na wa)–the animated film that became a megahit worldwide in 2016-17–shows to us, things contradictory coexist in such moment. Constitutional order and violation. Liberal-democratic and authoritarian regime. Social equality and neo-liberal market state. Judicial activism and...
The Trojan Horse of Abe’s Constitutional Amendment Proposal
This paper argues that the new and very modest formal amendment to Article 9 pushed by PM Abe, designed to avoid controversy and debate, could serve to effectively lock in the “reinterpretation“ as a de facto informal amendment to the constitution. From this perspective, the apparent reversal in the scope of Abe‘s amendment ambitions, and...