As present in the opinion of some Japanese scholarship, 'the sound and fury of the party battle could never be more than diversionary in the broad sweep of an absolutism built on Emperor, land, and capital.'6 It seems then, that democracy, in its official, parliamentary form, faced a colossus of constitutional opposition, perhaps originating from the fact that the authors of the Meiji Constitution had laid down the foundations of a modern state which 'was inevitably absolutist, counter-revolutionary, and imperialistic'.7 This was not, however, where the political sh...

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• Grade Level: Graduate