Dōshūsei

Dōshūsei is a proposal to organize Japan into one circuit of Hokkaido and several new states that are each a combination of several prefectures. The states and circuit are proposed to have greater regional autonomy, similar to the United Kingdom. It was proposed by the Junichiro Koizumi administration, but has yet to materialize.
Most of the political parties in 2012 supported this reform.

History

An early proposal to replace the prefectures with states and transform Japan into a federal state was Ueki Emori's 1881 draft constitution, one of the more well-known and radical manifestations of the many so-called "private" constitutional drafts that sprang from the Freedom and People's Rights Movement in the 1880s.