Masaki, Yusuke; (2025) Reevaluating Prefectural Assemblies in Prewar Japan: A Case Study on Ishikawa’s Budget Amendments from 1890 to 1898. Japanese Studies , 45 (1) pp. 101-121. 10.1080/10371397.2025.2498905.

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Abstract

Prefectural assemblies in Japan before World War II are generally considered to have been powerless because the governor could enforce his original draft under the home minister’s direction. However, formal institutional structures do not always explain their actual functioning. This article examines the Ishikawa Prefectural Assembly from 1890 to 1898, measuring the ratio of the assembly’s amendments to the governor’s original budgets. It finds that while most postwar assemblies have never amended budgets, the Ishikawa assembly from the 1890s through the 1920s passed only eight budgets without amendment. By tracing the transition of the budget from the governor’s original proposal through three readings until the home minister’s direction in the 1893 ordinary session, it reveals that the assembly, dominated by the faction favoring the prefectural government, readily cut the governor’s budget; that the governor also compromised significantly during the budget negotiation process; and that the amount revived by the execution of the original draft was much smaller than the reduction during the second reading. The article concludes that prewar prefectural assemblies were more influential than the formal rules suggest, with the execution of the original draft under the home minister’s direction being just one step in the final adjustment process.

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