Employing Contemporary Political Analysis Approaches to Examine the Political Systems of Imperial Japan (I) : Methodology Selection and Adaption

This, the first in a series of articles on this topic, aims to explore the adaptability of contemporary political system analysis methodologies to the historical case of Imperial Japan (1868 to 1945).It examines and then adapts a contemporary political system analysis methodology for future use in assessing the character of the Japanese political systems existing from 1880 to 1945.The detailed historical analysis, although introduced here, will be conducted in full in future articles.In blending both historical research and contemporary political scientific methods this article makes an original contribution to aspects of both disciplines.It prepares the ground for an analysis employing a much broader base of evidence than has been hitherto used in most studies of the political structures of Imperial Japan.The subsequent research which this paper enables will also likely generate original perspectives within the debates over over 'Taish democracy', 'Shwa fascism', and the character and evolution of pre-1945 Japanese political structures.