The Study Of Ito Hirobumi Constitutional Thought

Ito Hirobumi(1841-1909)is a well-known politician in Japan during Meiji.For his charge in enactment and implement of "The Constitution of Great Japanese Empire" and contribution to the establishment of constitutional structure in modern Japan, Ito Hirobumi is granted with honorable praise as "Father of the Meiji Constitution". Study on his constitutional thoughts and the practice will help to explore how those imports from modern western such as”constitution” transplant and evolve in Japan, and figure out the forms, contents, operating rules and spiritual essence of its constitutional government under the first written constitution in Asia.Moreover, it can promote to analyze deep influences of Ito Hirobumi's constitutional thoughts on Japanese political process in recent years.The introduction mainly introduces the source of this topic through citing different researches on Ito Hirobumi's political thought and practice. After that, there will be brief presentation of problems in this study and elaboration of research methods and the outline. In the second part, analysis will be given to the situation of Japanese economy, ideology, culture and politics around the Meiji Restoration,clarifying that the Meiji Constitution is fit to the historical context. Meanwhile, the formation of Ito Hirobumi's constitutional thoughts will be presented. The third part discusses Ito Hirobumi's constitutional thoughts are constructed on imperial sovereignty. He made a series of efforts to establish the sovereignty of the emperor which includes transforming the core concept of imperial sovereignty into constitution and making certain restrictions to the power of emperor. The fourth part focuses on Ito Hirobumi's decentralization which is based on the emperor's complete control of the main power. Under this, public power is divided into balanced legislation,relatively independent judicial power, the executive power and military rights beyond the constitutionalism. In the fifth part, it mainly summarizes changes of Ito Hirobumi's party and political thoughts. Firstly, it points out that the Meiji Constitution lacks of party politics literally. Then, the part states his concept of party politics undergoes a transition from the concept of "evil party" to the theory of "tool of political" where the founding of Rikken Seiyukai in particular deeply proves his thought. The sixth part makes conclusion, which mainly presents some personal insights of Ito Hirobumi's constitutional thoughts. It is can be seen that his thoughts have strong tone of gradualism which adapts to Japanese mainstream political thought at that time. Its positive effects include enforcing the outcome of Japan's Meiji Restoration by law, establishing the constitutional sense of law and democracy and guaranteeing rights of citizens. The negative impacts appear to the maintenance of the sovereignty of the emperor, which become a hotbed for Japanese militarism.