The shocking assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe has rocked Japan and the world. While the motives of the suspect in this shooting are so far unclear, it’s hard to overstate the potential significance for Japan’s domestic politics and foreign policy. Abe’s sudden death is likely to generate short-term and long-term consequences for Japanese politics.
Abe played an outsize role in Japanese politics
Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. His domestic policy achievements included economic policies — Abenomics — that produced a long period of economic growth. In international affairs, he pursued an assertive role in diplomatic negotiations over historical and contemporary issues with Russia, South Korea and China, while strengthening the U.S.-Japanese security relationship. Abe deserves credit, in part, for reestablishing the dominance of Japan’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which was out of power from 2009 to 2012. The LDP subsequently won six consecutive national elections under Abe’s leadership.
Japan’s prime minister is resigning. This is how Abe transformed Japanese politics.
His main policy setback was the failure to realize his longtime goal of revising Japan’s pacifist constitution to legitimate the role of Japan’s military, the Self-Defense Forces. Abe’s devotion to this goal made him a polarizing figure in Japan, and his hawkish attitude on security and equivocation on Japan’s wartime history also made him a frequent target of criticism by Japan’s neighbors.
His influence continued after leaving office
Abe stepped down as prime minister in 2020 for health reasons. But he remained the leader of the largest faction within the LDP and a de facto kingmaker in intraparty politics. This caused friction with the current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, who in his policy and personnel decisions has attempted to break away from Abe’s legacy. But while Kishida’s “new capitalism” economic program aimed to shift policy away from Abenomics, there’s some debate over how much his policies truly diverge from those of the Abe years.
Abe’s influence in foreign affairs similarly continued after he left office. For example, public comments last year on Japan’s interest in preventing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan sparked international attention — and criticism from Chinese leaders.
What to watch for in the short term
The most immediate political uncertainty is how the national shock over Abe’s death will affect Sunday’s election for the House of Councillors, the upper house of parliament.
It is the second election (after last year’s House of Representatives election) to be held under Kishida’s premiership — and Kishida hopes the results will solidify his position as LDP leader and boost his political capital for policy priorities. For the largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, Sunday’s election will be the first test for the leadership of Kenta Izumi, who was selected as party leader after his party’s unexpectedly poor performance in the 2021 lower house contest.
The conservative Nippon Ishin no Kai (Ishin), the fourth-largest party in the upper house (behind the LDP’s coalition partner Komeito), also hopes to further improve its standing in parliament. During the 2021 lower house election, Ishin gained 30 seats to become the third-largest party in that chamber.
Although the LDP is expected to win a majority of seats Sunday, the scale of the victory could have deep implications for domestic and foreign policy — including the realization of Abe’s longtime goal of revising the constitution. If the combined victories of the LDP, Ishin and other pro-revision parties exceed 166 seats, these parties will have the two-thirds majority necessary to pass a constitutional amendment in both houses. Such a measure would then need approval by a majority of voters in a national referendum.
Could Abe’s assassination have an effect on the Japanese public’s support for such a move? A similar tragedy in 1980, when Prime Minister Ohira Masayoshi died unexpectedly during a lower house election campaign, might give some clues. The resulting sympathy votes led to a huge LDP victory. While public attitudes toward constitutional revision in recent years have fallen just short of the 50 percent support needed for a referendum to pass, even a small shift — whether because of sympathy for Abe’s legacy or suppressed turnout among the opposition — could lead to a constitutional revision becoming a reality.
But it’s not obvious how public opinion over a constitutional revision might change in response to the assassination. The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, has been identified as a former member of the Self-Defense Forces, which may complicate how voters react to any proposed changes to the constitutional status of Japan’s military.
What about the long-term political consequences?
In the longer run, Abe’s assassination raises questions about the future distribution of power within the LDP. His faction — with over 90 members in the party’s parliamentary caucus — is the largest within the LDP. Kishida’s own faction, with just over 40 members, comes in fourth.
Abe’s faction, if it remains intact under a new leader, will continue to wield considerable power within the LDP. But if there is a dispute over who will lead the faction after Abe’s death, or if a reshuffling in factional affiliations occurs, expect instability in intraparty power dynamics. And that could put Kishida’s leadership at risk.
Don’t miss any of TMC’s smart analysis! Sign up for our newsletter.
The consequences for Japanese democracy overall are much harder to divine. Japan has — until now — largely managed to avoid the kind of political unrest and violence that has emerged in recent years in democracies around the world, including the United States. But political violence is not new to Japan, and the benefits of stability in the Abe years have arguably come at the cost of weak competition between parties and low voter satisfaction with democracy. The LDP easily dominates elections against a fragmented opposition in Japan’s predominantly winner-take-all, plurality-rule elections, and turnout has declined throughout the past decade.
For observers of Japanese politics, a frightening concern is whether Abe’s assassination is a singular act of senseless violence — or a harbinger of more political turmoil.
Professors: Check out TMC’s ever-expanding list of classroom topic guides.
Daniel M. Smith is the Gerald L. Curtis Visiting Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy in the Department of Political Science and School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He is the author of Dynasties and Democracy: The Inherited Incumbency Advantage in Japan (Stanford University Press, 2018), and co-editor, with Robert J. Pekkanen and Steven R. Reed, of Japan Decides 2021: The Japanese General Election (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).