AHC: Meiji Democracy

Normally, when looking for a way to keep the Japanese Empire relatively sane, alternate historians seek to find a way to have the post-WWI "Taisho Democracy" survie instead of eventually succumbing to militarism as happened IOTL.

Here, I would like to attempt approaching the question from a different angle.

The Meiji period (1861-1912) saw the rapid modernization of Japanese society on almost every level. However, implementation of democracy was relatively and this era is generally seen as one of rule by bureaucrats (the most powerful of which were called genro).

However, there were some fairly liberal members in the Meiji era oligarchy (such as Itagaki Taisuke and Okuma Shigenobu), who managed to push for some crucial democratic reforms, but were sidelined most of the times in favor of more conservative politicians, such as Ito Hirobumi.

But maybe things could have gone differently. Power squabbles in oligarchic systems can often produce a variety of different results. I don't find it implausible that conservative Meiji politicians could have become discredited at some point and liberals allowed to take over. So, the question is: how do we get a Meiji Democracy and how would that play out in the long run?

Hopefully, by giving Japanese democracy more time to stabilize it may be possible to resist militarism and nationalism when they eventually explode.
 
Becoming a full blown democracy is really unlikely as Japan has no democratic tradition or thought at this point and pretty much everyone supported a strong government to handle the necessities of the time. But for an eventual democracy either avoiding or having the French winning a Franco-Prussian War analogue can prevent the Meiji government from being enamored with the Prussian military and adapting several aspects of it, including the "state within a state" one for the IJA.
 
I'm afraid the best way to do this would be to shatter the false Japanese mentality that aggressive militarism pays off -- a defeat in the Russo-Japanese War could have done it, just like how a crushing (and, at the end, rather explosive) defeat in WW2 taught Japan the same lesson.
 
Becoming a full blown democracy is really unlikely as Japan has no democratic tradition or thought at this point and pretty much everyone supported a strong government to handle the necessities of the time. But for an eventual democracy either avoiding or having the French winning a Franco-Prussian War analogue can prevent the Meiji government from being enamored with the Prussian military and adapting several aspects of it, including the "state within a state" one for the IJA.

No country ever has a democratic tradition by the time they become a democracy. That's what, becoming a democracy is all about :p.

Anyway, I'm not talking about going straight into a post-WWII style of democracy, but I do believe it should be possible to anticipate a Taisho-era style regime, which could eventually evolve into a full-blown democarcy.

When you say that "pretty much everyone supported a strong government," assuming that by "strong government" you mean "oligarchic dictatorship," I don't agree at all, especially seeing as the 1890 elections saw the two liberal democratic political parties (Jiyuto and Kaishinto) win a very solid majority, which they retained in 1892 despite widespread political violence against them. So, there was clearly widespread support for rapid democratic reform amongst the common people (even those privileged enough to vote). The only problem was that the conservative faction of the Meiji oligarchy held most of the political power.

As such, the key to anticipating democratic reform seems to be having as many conservative oligarchs lose power as possible (perhaps have one or two important conservative genro die, and some other "dishonour the Emperor" in some manner). Oligarchic power squabbles can always go either way...
 
I'm afraid the best way to do this would be to shatter the false Japanese mentality that aggressive militarism pays off -- a defeat in the Russo-Japanese War could have done it, just like how a crushing (and, at the end, rather explosive) defeat in WW2 taught Japan the same lesson.

This thread isn't so much about preventing the rise of militarism (though that can be discussed as well, it's just that we've had many thread about it...) as much as it is about anticipating democratic reforms so that Japanese democracy can be better prepared to deal with it once it comes to be.
 
I once thought up a US wank where the expedition ends up with Japan being annexed and the emperor becoming governor for a lifetime. But that wasn't serious.
 
So, how about we take the Osaka Conference of 1875 as a starting point?

It was mostly intended to convince two prominent Japanese liberals, Itagaki Taisuke and Takayoshi to return to the Meiji government. In the end, it resulted in nothing symbolic concession to the idea of representative democracy.

But maybe it could be have been different. If we somehow chance balance of forces at the conference (maybe by killing one or two conservatives), it might have been possible to get an agreement for actual democratic reforms.
 
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