Japan’s defeat in World War II fundamentally changed the constitutional position of the emperor. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 had restored imperial rule after nearly seven centuries of military government under the shoguns, and the Meiji Constitution of 1889 formally vested sovereignty in the emperor. During the U.S.-led Allied occupation after World War II, that system was dismantled, although Emperor Hirohito remained on the throne. Japan’s 1947 constitution instead vested sovereignty in the Japanese people and defined the emperor as the “symbol of the State and of the unity of the People,” without powers of government.
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