Explain the impact of the American occupation of Japan after World War II

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

In the aftermath of the war, the American occupation of Japan, led by the U.S.
military and General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied
Powers (SCAP), instituted a sweeping reorganization of Japanese institutions. The
American occupation focused on demilitarization and democratization. Most
dramatically, Article 9 of the new 1947 Constitution—written under the guidance of
American authorities—eliminated Japan's military and renounced Japan's right to wage
war. Japan later established self-defense forces, which ultimately grew into a military in
everything but name.
The constitution also wholly transformed Japan's non-democratic system. The new
constitution reduced the emperor to a mere figurehead symbol of the Japanese state, like
the UK's monarch. Meanwhile, the constitution listed civil liberties for Japan's citizens,
established a democratically elected bicameral parliament, which would determine the
prime minister, gave women the right to vote, dispersed the power of the zaibatsu, and
eliminated the emphasis on nationalism in primary and secondary education.
Nevertheless, there was also substantial continuity from the pre-war era. American
occupation authorities needed locals to run the Japanese government on a day-to-day
basis, so they left the bureaucracy largely intact. This permitted the Japanese bureaucracy
to continue its major involvement in running the country's economy. Prior to the war,
government bureaucrats had provided advantages to particular firms in industries that it
wanted to succeed. This meant that after the war, the Japanese government adopted
democracy, but not American-style free market capitalism. Instead, it continued to
protect and promote key domestic industries and eventually, the zaibatsu were reestablished
as what were called keiretsu—a network of interlocking firms that share their
own central bank.