Editing Constitution of Japan (section)

=== Early proposals for constitutional amendment ===
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The new constitution would not have been written the way it was had MacArthur and his staff allowed Japanese politicians and constitutional experts to resolve the issue as they wished.{{Citation needed|date=August 2014}} The document's foreign origins have, understandably, been a focus of controversy since Japan recovered its sovereignty in 1952.{{Citation needed|date=August 2014}} Yet in late 1945 and 1946, there was much public discussion on constitutional reform, and the MacArthur draft was apparently greatly influenced by the ideas of certain Japanese liberals. The MacArthur draft did not attempt to impose a United States-style presidential or federal system. Instead, the proposed constitution conformed to the [[Westminster system|British model]] of parliamentary government, which was seen by the liberals as the most viable alternative to the continental European [[Enlightened absolutism|absolutism]] of the Meiji Constitution.{{Citation needed|date=August 2014}}

After 1952, conservatives and [[Japanese nationalism|nationalists]] attempted to revise the constitution to make it more "Japanese", but these attempts were frustrated for a number of reasons. One was the extreme difficulty of amending it. Amendments require approval by two-thirds of the members of both houses of the National Diet before they can be presented to the people in a referendum ([[Article 96 of the Japanese Constitution|Article 96]]). Also, opposition parties, occupying more than one-third of the Diet seats, were firm supporters of the constitutional status quo. Even for members of the ruling [[Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)|Liberal Democratic Party]] (LDP), the constitution was advantageous. They had been able to fashion a policy-making process congenial to their interests within its framework. [[Yasuhiro Nakasone]], a strong advocate of constitutional revision during much of his political career, for example, downplayed the issue while serving as prime minister between 1982 and 1987.