The Causes of the Showa Restoration :: Historical Periods Showa Restoration Essays

The Causes of the Showa RestorationSonno joi, Restore the Emperor and expel the Barbarians, was thebattle cry that ushered in the Showa Restoration in Japan during the1930s.Footnote1 The Showa Restoration was a combination of Japanese nationalism,Japanese expansionism, and Japanese militarism all carried out in the name ofthe Showa Emperor, Hirohito. Unlike the Meiji Restoration, the Showa Restorationwas not a resurrection of the Emperors powerFootnote2, instead it was aimed atrestoring Japans prestige. During the 1920s, Japan appeared to be ontogenesis ademocratic and peaceful government. It had a quasi-democratic governmental body,the Diet,Footnote3 and voting rights were extended to all malecitizens.Footnote4 Yet, underneath this seemingly placid surface, lurkedmomentous problems that lead to the Showa Restoration. The renewal that Japanmade from its parliamentary government of the 1920s to the Showa Restorationand military dictatorship of the late 1930s was not a sudden transfor mation.Liberal forces were not toppled by a coup overnight. Instead, it was gradual,feed by a complex combination of internal and external factors.The history that links the constitutional settlement of 1889 to theShowa Restoration in the 1930s is not an easy story to relate. Thetransformation in Japans governmental structure involved the historical periodbetween 1868 and 1912 that preceded the Showa Restoration. This period ofdemocratic reforms was an fundamental cause of the militarist reaction that leadto the Showa Restoration. The transformation was also feed by several immediatecauses such as, the downturn in the global economy in 1929Footnote5 and theinvasion of Manchuria in 1931.Footnote6 It was the convergence of these external,internal, underlying and immediate causes that lead to the military dictatorshipin the 1930s.The historical period before the Showa Restoration, 1868-1912, shapedthe policy-making climate in which Japan could transform itself from a democracy toa m ilitaristic state. This period is known as the Meiji Restoration.Footnote7The Meiji Restoration of 1868 completely dismantled the Tokugawa semipolitical orderand replaced it with a centralized system of government headed by the Emperorwho served as a figure head.Footnote8 However, the Emperor instead of being a seminal fluid of power for the Meiji Government, became its undoing. The Emperor wasplaced in the mystic position of demi-god by the leaders of the MeijiRestoration. Parliamentarians justified the new quasi-democratic government ofJapan, as being the Emperors Will. The ultra-nationalist and militaristicgroups took wages of the Emperors status and claimed to speak for theEmperor.Footnote9 These then groups turned the tables on the parliamentarians byclaiming that they, not the civil government, represented the Imperial Will.The parliamentarians, confronted with this perversion of their own policy,