Since the Meiji Restoration was implemented arbitrarily by the Satsuma clan, the Choshu clan, and some court nobles, it was sometimes derisively called "a clan dominated government," but it cannot be said that a couple of powerful clans led this restoration because a considerable number of Tokugawas and former retainers of the Shogun were hired as the middle or upper levels of the bureaucracy.
主に旧薩摩藩・長州藩および一部の公家による専制政治として実行されたため「藩閥政府」と揶揄されることもあるが、中級官僚以上でも旧親藩・旧幕臣などから採用された者も少なくなく、一概に一部雄藩のみが主導したともいえない。