In 1920, the country of Japan was beginning to show outward signs that it was embarking on a path towards political modernization and a model of relatively liberal democracy. Indeed, the previous decade had seen the nation's masses call for a 'constitutional government' and, by the beginning of the 1920's, elected politicians had come in from the peripheries to wield considerable, actual power. Rapid industrialization developed both a moneyed bourgeoisie and an urban proletariat, and trade unions and political organizations had begun to spring up at a greatly accelerated pace. The prime minister at the turn of the decade, Hara Takashi, was the first commoner to hold the position in Japan's history. Education had been universalized, and social mobility seemed to be on the increase. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 and the Rice Riots of 1918 energized radical thought, and there were movements calling for universal male suffrage1, the social, economic and political liberation of women, and the end of the existing social order entirely.
Why then, by the end of the decade, had the tide of democratic process receded, and how had Japan's conservative and authoritarian elements reined back power from the hands of the people? This essay will attempt to answer these questions by looking at the respective movements trying to attain democratic rule, and on the opposite side, the forces of authority that were used to contain them, as well as considering the political institutions and people of Japan itself. Two of the key pieces of legislation passed during the 1920's will also be considered, the Universal Suffrage Bill and the Peace Preservation Law, both of 1925, as together they illustrate the cautious balance between progress and retreat that punctuated interwar Japanese politics.
The first focus of this essay will be on the official side to Japanese democracy – the elected legislature.
Argue your case with particular reference Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and USA. ... During the 1920s most sectors of the American economy grew. ... People lost confidence in democracy, socialism and capitalism. ... In Japan the silk industry was especially hard hit. One third of Japan's export earnings came from the silk industry. ...
Later, democracy would bloom in Taiwan. Taiwan's successful economy and eventually successful democracy made it one of Asia's proudest success stories. ... Its industry lagged behind its potential and most of it was captured anyway by the Japanese. ... Chiang Kai-shek's government was too weak at first to fight the Japanese and its subsequent concessions were humiliating to most Chinese. ... - If the latter is the case, than Taiwan would probably have encountered the same serious problems the mainland did, had it not allowed for market freedom, local elections in the 1970s...
Europeans had little experience with democracy. ... People may then be willing to sacrifice democracy in exchange for strong leadership. This happened in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. ... Taking advantage of the political crisis resulting from Italy's attack, Germany's armed forces reoccupied the Rhineland and later that year established what is known as the Berlin-Rome Axis and also a pact with Japan called the Anti-Comintern Pact. ...
In the 1920s and 30s, liberal policies and institutions had failed, and fascism has only prospered politically in times of either economic crisis, or fear of communist take-over (or both). ... The 1920s and "30s saw African-Americans intimidated by cross-burnings, and beaten and lynched at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan (RoSo, 2002). ... Fascism rejected Marxism, parliamentary democracy and liberalism. ... Hitler would engage in electoral politics to appear to submit to democratic process, but democracy, according to Hitler, was "nothing other than the systematic cultivation of human failure...
Its programme was often summarized as nationalism, democracy, and socialism. ... During the 1920s the Kuomintang, an organization formed out of Sun Yat-sen's alliance, was also active and included many Communist members. ... Two years later, Japan invaded China forcing the Kuomintang and the Communists into an uneasy alliance. At the end of the war against Japan in 1945 the alliance collapsed into civil war. ... With relations between the British and China frosty due to British attempts steered by the last colonial governor, Chris Patten, to give Hong Kong at least some experience of d...
This status dove the foreign goals of the country to the 1920s. ... It also captured the rise of Japanese empire; Japanese might have caused the Second World War due to their invasion of China, big places e.g. ... In 1937, Japan also invaded China and occupied several places in China. ... Firstly, they did so to respond to an attack by Japanese on Pearl Harbor and to stop Japanese aggression in the Pacific Ocean (Stouffer et al., 1949). America also entered the war to stop fascism and prove to them that democracy was still superior to their form of leadership, America however, imprisoned those...
During the 1920s, Republican Party administrators implemented a foreign policy consisting of two main themes. ... This encouraged German and Japanese expansion and weakened the resolve of more liberal democracies to stand up to their aggression. ... By December 1941 the US had declared war on Germany and Japan and declared that the war would have a democratic purpose. ...
Fascism having been defeated with the end of World War II, the end of Soviet communism marked the triumph of democracy. This period of time is historically significant as it spaned over the death of the "Old Order" and the following battle between fascism, communism, and democracy to be the new dominant social system. ... A new nation on the scene - Japan Starting around 1868, Japan, realizing their weakness compared to the powers of Europe, began to transform themselves in to a powerful industrial state. Due to their lack of natural resources, Japan began to step up their military power...
