From a political perspective, a constitution can be seen not only as a promulgation of basic law, but also as a political act: a seizure of power. Most modern constitutions in the tradition of the Magna Carta (though not those promulgated by dictators) aim to seize power from kings and/or aristocrats and place it under the limits of law. The Constitution of Japan was also such a power seizure, carried out by a short-lived alliance between The US Occupation forces and (a part of) the Japanese people. Thus it should not be surprising that the Japanese political class sees it as having been “forced on” them. That's what good constitutions do. Almost from the time it was ratified, Japanese conservatives have been trying to promote constitutional revision that would return the country to something closer to the authoritarian condition it was under during the reign of the Meiji Constitution. This is going on as this is being written, so one can only speculate how it will turn out…

Recent moves by the Abe administration to change the Japanese constitution may result in the most fundamental change to Japanese political life since the 1940s. Although there has been widespread debate on the possible revision of Article 9 – the constitution's Peace Clause – other profound implications of the push for constitutional change have received scant attention. This special issue edited by Tessa Morris-Suzuki and Shinnosuke Takahashi aims to take a broad view of constitutional debates in Japan today by posing two key questions: “What is the purpose of the constitution?” and “What does the constitution mean for a culturally plural and diverse society?”

A little over 75 years ago, a Japan-designed Asia-Pacific community collapsed, leaving not only Japan, but much of the region, in chaos. Millions were dead, with cities left in ruins. Important lessons the world—and many Japanese people—took from the catastrophe of the Asia-Pacific War and the demise of the Japanese Empire were incorporated in the American-crafted constitution of Japan that took effect one year later, which pledged under Article 9 that Japan would forever renounce “war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes,” adding that “land, sea, and air forces … will never be maintained.” That pledge remains, unrevised but steadily emptied of content, and the 1946 aspiration to create a new kind of state, one resting on the “peace” principle, has been largely forgotten. Over subsequent decades, the US, which had imposed Article 9 on an occupied Japan, came to regret its recrafting of Japan as a “peace state,” and began steadily exerting pressure on it to revive and expand its military. Thus, with US encouragement, Japan has, over time, indeed built formidable land, sea, and air forces, evading constitutional proscription by calling them “Self-Defence” forces (rather than Army, Navy, and so on).

This article discusses key political issues surrounding Japan's Legislation for Peace and Security that came into effect on 29 March 2016. The past two years have seen heated public debate and political protests with opposition parties uniting in their opposition to the legislation in their attempt to challenge the LDP-Komeito ruling coalition in the July 10 Upper House election. This challenge continues. In this article, I discuss opposition claims that the security legislation is ‘war legislation’ that poses a threat to Japan's pacifist Constitution. I also discuss the central role played by Komeito in the passage of this legislation and examine the often antagonistic relationship between the LDP and its junior coalition partner, which is often ignored in the simplified narratives of the choice between ‘war and peace’ played out in the public sphere. This article, therefore, addresses not only the legislation but also public perceptions and misperceptions of the issues involved and the underlying political process.

Despite the push for more fundamental change and the heated rhetoric that followed the July 2014 Abe Cabinet Decision on the security legislation and its enactment in September 2015, this article argues that it was a centrist pragmatic development in Japanese politics rather than a radical change, due in large part to the moderating influence of Komeito.

The proposed Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) is the first comprehensive attempt to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) in a major jurisdiction. This article analyses Article 9, the key risk management provision in the AI Act. It gives an overview of the regulatory concept behind the norm, determines its purpose and scope of application, offers a comprehensive interpretation of the specific risk management requirements and outlines ways in which the requirements can be enforced. This article can help providers of high-risk systems to comply with the requirements set out in Article 9. In addition, it can inform revisions of the current draft of the AI Act and efforts to develop harmonised standards on AI risk management.

Political parties’ behavior in coalition formation is commonly explained by their policy-, vote-, and office-seeking incentives. From these perspectives, the 20-year partnership of Japan's ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its pacifistic Komeito junior coalition partner is an anomalous case. The longevity, closeness, and nature of their unlikely partnership challenges core assumptions in existing theories of coalition politics. LDP–Komeito cooperation has sustained for two decades despite vastly different support bases and ideological differences on fundamental policy issues. LDP leaders also show no signs of abandoning the much smaller Komeito despite enjoying a single-party majority. We argue that the remarkable durability of this puzzling partnership results primarily from the two parties’ electoral incentives and what has effectively become codependence under Japan's mixed electoral system. Our analysis also demonstrates that being in a coalition can induce significant policy compromises, even from a much larger senior partner. Beyond theoretical implications, these phenomena yield important real-world consequences for Japanese politics: especially, a far less dominant LDP than the party's Diet seat total suggests, and Komeito's remarkable ability to punch significantly above its weight and constrain its far larger senior partner, even on the latter's major national security policy priorities.