“Assess the importance of the Allies’ treatment of Emperor Hirohito to the success of the Allied Occupation and the development of democracy in Japan to 1951.”

First, we must understand what the question is asking, by breaking it down into the key terms and phrases, as follows:

We will start with the events that the question is talking about. In this question we will be talking about three events: “the Allies’ treatment of Emperor Hirohito,” “The success of the Allied Occupation of Japan” and “the development of democracy in Japan”. The question also puts a time frame on these events: “to 1951”, so we should not talk about what happened after 1951. So, firstly, we should research these three events, asking the key questions, what were they, when did they happen, how did they happen, and why did they happen.

Now we know about the events we are going to be talking about, we can work out what we are being asked about these events by looking at the other half of the question: “Assess the importance of the Allies’ treatment of Emperor Hirohito to the success of the Allied Occupation and the development of democracy in Japan”.

So, the question is asking us how important the Allies’ treatment of Emperor Hirohito was to the success of the Allied Occupation and the development of democracy in Japan. To answer this, we must decide the following things:

First, we must decide how important the Allies’ treatment of Emperor Hirohito was to the success of the Allied Occupation and the development of democracy in Japan, based upon the research we have done on each of these events. In relation to each of these events, we must decide: Was it the most important factor? Was it unimportant? Was it only one of several important factors? If we need more information to reach a conclusion, we should look up a few historians’ books about the postwar period in Japan in general.

Second, we must decide how important other factors than the Allies’ treatment of Emperor Hirohito were to the success of the Allied Occupation and the development of democracy in Japan. So we must turn back to our research and look for other reasons for the success of the Allied Occupation and the development of democracy in Japan than the Allies’ treatment of Emperor Hirohito. Another reason might, for example, be that the Occupation forces were relatively honest and not corrupt, or that the war had completely sapped the resistance of Japanese civilians.

Now we know what we think about the question, it is time to plan a structure. A basic plan includes your main point in the form of a complete sentence (which will become your essay’s opening sentence), followed by a list of points that will form the topic sentences of each of your paragraphs. An example of a plan for structuring this essay would be as follows:

The Allies’ treatment of Emperor Hirohito was crucial to the success of the allied occupation of Japan, but did not significantly assist the development of democracy in the period to 1951.

1) The Allied occupation of Japan would not have been successful if Hirohito had not been treated so well, because without the symbolism of allowing the Japanese to retain their honour while accepting surrender, strong resistance would have been likely.

2) The allied occupation was successful, and while there were other factors responsible for this, their good treatment of the Emperor was one of the most important.

3) The treatment of Hirohito was not particularly important to the development of Democracy because the failure to indict the Emperor in the War Tribunal actually weakened the perceived power of the new ‘democratic’ institutions by implying that the Emperor was above them…

4) Other factors such as effective implementation of non-corrupt occupation policies were far more helpful to the development of democracy in Japan than was the American treatment of Hirohito.

Now, you must use the research you did to support your points, giving examples that support each of your paragraph points, and then saying why that evidence proves the paragraph point. Finally, in each paragraph, you should finish by saying how the point you made in the opening sentence of the paragraph supports the point you made in your opening sentence at the start of your essay.

If you need more help, or for us to show you how to do this for your essay questions enquire about HSC Modern History Tutoring.