Japan

Constitutional monarchy — Parliamentary monarchy

Japan is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy in which the Emperor's role has been strictly limited since the 1947 Constitution. Its Article 1 defines the Emperor as "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people", and Article 4 states that he "shall not have powers related to government": he merely performs ceremonial acts in matters of state — promulgating laws, convening the Diet, formally appointing the Prime Minister designated by Parliament — on the mandatory advice and approval of the Cabinet, with no personal discretion. This is a clear break with the Meiji Constitution of 1889, which made the Emperor a "sacred and inviolable" sovereign. Executive power belongs entirely to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, accountable to the National Diet, whose politics have been dominated since 1955 by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), apart from two brief interruptions (1993–1994 and 2009–2012).