Being Active: Guarantees and Limits on Realizing Japan's Constitution

• In Event: Current Challenges to Japanese Constitutionalism

Abstract

The “Liberal” nature of Japanese protests against the government’s new security legislation manifests in slogans such as “Our Future! Our Choice!” and “Fight For Liberty!” together with catchy songs like “Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like! This is What Democracy Looks Like!” Notwithstanding the movement’s contemporary spin, most remarkable appears to be its proponents’ shared goal to constellate the achievements of liberal political history and theory. The collective will to safeguard Japan’s standing constitution coupled with a collective call for a peaceful transition of power — “Abe, Out!” — underscore this in broad strokes. Relying neither on bayonets nor assassins and armed only with megaphones, these citizen activists would dare to “Protect the Constitution!”

All the more surreal, therefore, is the palace coup that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and his supporters have attempted against their own form of government in the early hours of September 19, 2015. As constitutional scholar Hasebe Yasuo famously remarked earlier in the process to a Reuters journalist, “I think (Abe) hates the concept of modern constitutionalism, the concept that the powers of government should be restricted by the constitution.” Importantly, the current administration’s actions are not manifestations of some cultural aberration; that is, their machinations are not peculiarly Japanese as some would imagine. Rather, this maneuver reveals signal challenges to the nature of sovereignty itself in Japan today: whose country is it? Moreover, what does this historical moment reveal about American power and Japanese political action?

Author

• Alexis Dudden, University of Connecticut