THE GOVERNMENT OF MODERN JAPAN: THE JAPANESE DIET (PARLIAMENT) The Diet's Selection of the Prime Minister |
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Gerald L. Curtis :: Although the Diet has not lived up to its constitutional role as the supreme organ of state power, it is the arena from within which the political leadership of Japan is chosen. And in that sense, there is no longer the fragmentation of power that existed before the Second World War when the emperor was in theory all-powerful — so that the bureaucracy had power, the military had power, the Diet had some power, but there was no clear accountability or center for political power in Japan. Under the post-war system, since power resides with the Diet, the party that controls the majority in the Diet exercises political power and forms the government Japan is a typical parliamentary system in which the executive, that is the prime minister, is chosen from among the members of the parliament, so that the political party that has a majority of seats, or the coalition of parties that control a majority of seats, decides who the prime minister is going to be, and that prime minister then appoints his cabinet, also from among the members of the Diet. [Comparison with the U.S. Political System] Japan does not have a separation of powers like we have in the United States, where the executive, the head of the executive branch, the president, is elected directly by the people, the Congress is elected separately, and there is a separation between the two in terms of their powers. |
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