Parliamentary Democracy in Japan and the UK

On the face of it, Japan and Britain have similar parliamentary systems. Both countries are parliamentary democracies under a monarchy, and both have a bicameral system in which the Upper House acts as a check on the Lower House. But in practice, they work very differently. In the UK, power tends to switch between the two main parties at least once every decade or so, and each side is able to implement its key policies without much difficulty. In Japan, the system of alternating between two main parties is in its infancy, and it is proving remarkably difficult for the “governing” party to pass key legislation. Japanese Prime Ministers come and go with bewildering speed, while two of the UK’s recent Prime Ministers (Thatcher and Blair) have lasted a decade. Where is the Japanese system going wrong, and what can the two countries learn from each other?

Contributors: Professor G.W. Jones OBE, Professor Kensuke Takayasu

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