About Japan's Political System

(Mar 13, 2011) On February 24 the Sister Cities Council’s OLLI course had their second class in the scheduled six-class course on Japanese Culture and Customs. Harold Sare, Professor Emeritus of OSU’s Political Science Department presented the class titled The Japanese Political System and he did a great job. He presented  an overview of about fourteen centuries of history including the role powerful family clans played in very early history, the 250 year rule by successive Tokugawa Shoguns when the country was closed to the outside world, the creation of a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary system of government in the late 1800s and events leading up to WW II. He also spoke about the U.S. occupation of Japan and his experiences as a member of the occupation forces and about the constitution rewritten in 1947 to establish a new government with the Prime Minister as head of government and the Diet made up of a house of Representatives and a House of Councillors. Harold concluded his presentation talking about present-day economic problems and some of the issues that have brought about the problems. He talked about the size of the country, the very homogenous and aging population, immigration and the makeup of the labor force, overpriced land and outsourcing of jobs. The aging population is a serious problem and is likely to continue to be a problem for the foreseeable future.  It was a very interesting and thought-provoking presentation and the Sister Cities Council thanks Harold, the very first chair of our council twenty-five years ago, for presenting one of the classes in our course.