Contemporary Japan: occupation, high growth, and after
The contemporary domain tests the occupation's reforms, the architecture of the postwar political economy, and the turning points that reshaped it.
Occupation and the new order
- 1945 surrender; SCAP under MacArthur; demilitarisation and democratisation.
- Constitution promulgated 3 November 1946, effective 3 May 1947: sovereignty of the people, Article 9, local autonomy, women's suffrage.
- Land reform transferred landlord holdings to cultivators; zaibatsu dissolution; labour legislation; the 1947–48 reverse course as the Cold War hardened.
Sovereignty and the 1955 system
- San Francisco Peace Treaty and Security Treaty 1951, effective 1952; rearmament via the National Police Reserve, later the Self-Defence Forces.
- 1955: LDP formed by merger, and the 1955 system of LDP dominance versus a fragmented opposition begins.
- 1960 Anpo crisis; 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Shinkansen, IMF Article 8 status; 1972 Okinawa reversion and normalisation with China.
Structural shifts
1985 Plaza Accord and yen appreciation; bubble and its 1991 collapse; 1995 Kobe earthquake and Aum attack; 2011 earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima; 2015 security legislation; 2019 Reiwa succession.
Worked example
Question: why did the 1955 system endure? Reasoning: the LDP aggregated rural overrepresentation, business funding and bureaucratic expertise, while opposition parties split along ideological lines and could not form a governing coalition; electoral arithmetic plus organisation, not simply economic growth, explains the durability.
Traps
Confusing the 1946 promulgation with the 1947 enforcement date; treating the 1951 treaty as restoring full sovereignty immediately (it took effect in 1952); assuming Okinawa's reversion came with the 1951 peace.