Tokyo Report | Politics | East Asia

After Abe: Is Japan Entering a Takaichi Era?

The era in which the LDP was Japan’s dominant party in power was widely thought to be a thing of the past – until Takaichi. 

Since 2022, a series of scandals – notably those related to the Unification Church and political funding – has damaged the reputation of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has dominated Japanese politics since its founding in 1955. At the same time, the uninspiring leaders who followed Abe Shinzo, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, struggled to connect with a public increasingly concerned about economic security and daily life. Together, these factors gradually but steadily reinforced the perception that the LDP was incapable of reform and unable to respond to public demands.

Against this backdrop, Japanese politics was widely expected to move toward a “moderate multi-party system,” in which the LDP would be forced to compromise and engage in substantive deliberation in the Diet in order to secure cooperation from opposition parties regardless of their size. The moderating influence of this new political environment – where the LDP lacked a majority in both houses – did have some effect on the ruling party’s behavior, making it more willing to amend legislation and grant policy concessions to the opposition in order to pass bills.

However, the downside of this kind of quid pro quo politics is that it tends to produce only tactical victories with limited, micro-level impact for opposition parties. From the outside, these outcomes often fail to appear as a genuine reconfiguration of the status quo, falling short of addressing the evolving needs of Japanese society and the changing international environment.

The snap election in February was, in effect, a repudiation of this direction of governance and an embrace of an older refrain in Japanese politics – a dominant LDP able to disregard the entreaties of the opposition in order to advance its policy agenda. 

The electorate delivered a historic victory to Takaichi Sanae, who promised to restore Japanese greatness and ensure absolute security. She presented herself as an iconoclast who embodied boldness and decisiveness, unconcerned with the conventions that had long shaped the usual way of doing business in Nagatacho. In essence, Japanese politics now appears to be moving back toward a period resembling the era when Abe Shinzo stood at the center of Japanese politics and helped create the political environment that sustained such LDP dominance.

This raises an important question: what exactly was the “age of Shinzo Abe”? It may be defined as the period from 2012, when he returned to power, to 2022, when he was assassinated during an election campaign that ultimately ended in a resounding victory for the LDP. (Although Abe resigned as prime minister in 2020, he remained a towering figures within his party and Japan’s politics writ large.) The decade from 2012-2022 was characterized by a conservative leader who governed toward the center by prioritizing economic policy, while benefiting politically from an opposition that had lost its sense of purpose and was unable to mount a meaningful challenge to the ruling party’s dominance.

Now, it appears that elements of this earlier era may be returning under Takaichi. Previously regarded as an ideological conservative, she has adopted a relatively moderate posture on issues ranging from fiscal policy to foreign relations. At the same time, she is likely to benefit politically in the coming years from a strong position in the Diet. In the lower house, the opposition remains relatively small and fragmented. Meanwhile, in the upper house, although Takaichi’s coalition lacks a majority, several other parties appear willing to support the government, and the largest opposition group, the Centrist Reformist Alliance (CRA), lacks a strong institutional base in that chamber.

However, while history may rhyme, it never truly repeats. The same may be said of a potential new Abe-like era, which would likely possess characteristics unique to the current political environment. 

First, the younger generation has, in recent years, become more politically engaged than at any point in the recent past. Abe’s electoral dominance........

© The Diplomat