In the Eyes of the Beholder: Policy Speeches of Prime Minister Abe Shinzou

Abstract

The second coming of Abe Shinzou with the reelection of the Liberal Democratic Party（LDP）to the lower house（shugiin）of the Japanese Diet in December 2012 was thought highly unlikely at the time of his sudden resignation as Prime Minister on 12 September, 2007. Among some younger people there was a trendy expression “to do an Abe”（安倍する）used to mean “when faced with a difficult situation, throw in the towel and get out.”1 Having been re-selected as party leader some months before the election, voters knew that if they voted for the LDP he would be the new prime minister. The clear failure of Abe’s first approximately one-year term as prime minister and the apparent success of the first two years of his second leads one to ask: What changed? Clearly much had changed. The political situation in Japan, the 2008 Lehman Brothers shock and other events, in particular the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in eastern Japan had a large impact on Japanese people. But it is the purpose of this paper to examine what if anything changed in Abe, in particular, in his rhetorical style or substance? To answer this question, Abe’s early speeches from both terms （his second tenor as prime minster continues at time of writing）will be analyzed and compared. The first section that follows will look at the background leading up to Abe’s first term as prime minister, the circumstances and important events of his first term, and then briefly comment on the reign from 2009 to 2012 of the Democratic Party of Japan, whose defeat in election in December 2012 leads to Abe’s second opportunity to take the helm once more. The failure of the DPJ to implement effective policies sets them up for defeat in December 2012. The discussion of this at the time Abe would start his second Administration prepares for the analysis that follows, which will incorporate further elements of the situation and Abe’s and others’ perspectives to better analyze the speeches.