本稿は, 戦後日本政治における首相と参議院の関係を分析している。より具体的には, 首相は, 日本の国会制度における法案審議時間の制約と日本の議院内閣制における参議院の独自性を踏まえた上で, 内閣提出法案の成立を確実にするためにさまざまな方策を用いて, 法案審議以前の段階で予め法案に対する支持を参議院の多数派から獲得してきたことを明らかにしている。これまでの参議院研究では, 参議院の審議過程で法案の内容や成立が左右されることがないため, 参議院には限られた影響力しかないというカーボンコピー論が通説的地位を占めてきた。しかし, 本稿はその分析を通じて, 参議院の審議過程で法案の内容や成立が左右されることが少ないのは, 首相の法案成立に向けた事前の努力の結果に過ぎず, 参議院は法案審議以前の政治過程で広範な影響力を及ぼしていることを明らかにしている。

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The recent conservative trend in political science has been accompanied by the emergence of conservative interpretations of the occupation period. Among these revised views, the most conspicuous one is the high appraisal of Yoshida Shigeru, which elucidates Yoshida's politics as mainstream within the postwar Japanese conservative party. Yoshida is now seen as a main figure who contributed to the postwar political stability and economic prosperity of Japan.
My close examinations of the first-hand historical materials of the postwar occupation period, such as the diaries of Ashida Hitoshi, however, have led me to question the validity of this conservative interpretation. Moreover, that interpretation contains the following theoretical defects. First, it has somewhat ignored the systemic approach of history. That is to say, this interpretation has underestimated the significance of discontinuity between prewar and postwar Japanese society. Consequently, feudalistic aspects of prewar Japanese society as well as the significance of the democratization of postwar Japanese society have been neglected. Naturally enough, this has led to the neglect of Yoshida's feudalistic values and a tendency to evaluate Yoshida as a liberal-conservative. The conservative interpretation has ignored the fact that Yoshida regarded the USSR as an expansionist state and his anti-communist stance has been somehow ignored.
These interpretations have brought about, on the other hand, an oversimplified appraisal of Ashida as an “ultra-nationalist.” Accordingly, the importance of the Katayama-Ashida coalition government between the Japanese Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Party has not been emphasized adequately in these evaluations of the occupation period. The objective of this article is to attempt a reappraisal of the occupation period, particularly in the period of the coalition government as well as the politics and diplomacy of Ashida. This article is closely based upon the diaries of Ashida Hitoshi, which I recenty co-edited in seven volumes.
The article contains the following major points:
1. The conservative trend in interpretations of postwar history
2. Continuity and discontinuity: the meaning of democratization in the postwar period
3. Historian's interpretations of the “Konoye Memorial”
4. Ashida's views on world affairs prior to the surrender of Japan
5. The complexities of the Japanese constitution-making process
6. The rise and fall of the coalition government
7. The unknown battle over reform of the Imperial Household
8. The partisan struggle for national control of the coal industry
9. Economic recovery and the democratization of Japanese society
10. A gap in Japanese historiography: A dilemma within Japanese liberalism

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