The purpose of the dissertation is mainly to illustrate the theory and practice of direct democracy in terms of Japanese referendum, as well as the impact of Japanese referendum on democratic development in Japan.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen believes that: People should be given four direct democratic rights of election, recall, initiative and referendum, etc. Having these four rights, people can follow their will to urge the government to implement policy, to render government policy more perfect. Direct democratic rights advocated by Dr. Sun Yat-sen is currently an important and valuable democratic essence. In addition, both Dr. Sun Yat-sen's thought of democratic rights and theory of Western direct democracy are an institutional way to directly represent the sovereign will of the people by means of popular vote, so in the system, Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s thought of direct democratic rights and the Western theory of direct democracy are undifferentiated.
After defeat of the Second World War, since 1947 Japan implemented the constitution of Japan formulated under the guidance of the United States (also known as the Peace Constitution) and the institution of residents participating in politics, it has been developing for many years. The general impression of Japanese politics is mostly a conservative bureaucratic political system, but in the back of the conservative bureaucracy, it still harbors direct democratic spirit of resident vote. In addition to the national review, Japan’s nationwide resident vote corrected by constitution has not yet been implemented, but the local resident vote has been implemented for many years of history. Therefore the implementation of Japanese referendum still has its limitations, problems and legalization and other issues, needed to be further discussed and analyzed. Therefore, I hope to analyze and discuss the referendum through this paper, and find its solution, in order to provide Taiwan with a reference.