Western and japanese constitutional thought in the shaping of the role of the japanese Emperor in the 1889 and 1946 Constitutions

The article focuses on the Imperial institution in Japan. After an overview on the role played by Emperors until the mid-XIX century, the article examines the influence of the German theories on sovereignty during the drafting procedure of the 1889 Constitution. Here the Emperor was qualified as a living god and the only source of all the sovereignty. After the defeat in WWII and the US occupation, the 1946 Constitution modified the sovreignty principle and shaped a human Emperor, with just a symbolic role