Sakuzō Yoshino

Sakuzō Yoshino (吉野 作造) was a Japanese author active as a political thinker in the Taishō period. He is best known for his formulation of the theory of "Minponshugi," or politics of the people.

Yoshino graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1904. In 1906 he went to China as a private tutor for the son of Yuan Shikai, the then dominant Chinese politician. He returned in 1909 and took a position teaching political history and theory in the Faculty of Law at Tokyo Imperial University until 1924. In 1910, he went abroad for three years to study in Germany, England and the United States. On his return he began to write articles discussing the problems of implementing democratic government in Japan, such as political corruption and universal suffrage. He published his most famous essays in the noted literary magazine Chūōkōron. Arguably his most significant work, "On the Meaning of Constitutional Government," was written in response to the popular belief in the superiority of the Prussian pattern. In it, Yoshino argued that democracy was compatible with the concept of the emperor's sovereignty.