Maruoka, C and Rose, C (2023) How the Mighty are Fallen: Evaluating Abe Shinzō’s Leadership Capital in Crisis. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, 8 (1). 18 -34. ISSN 2057-8911
Abstract
Japanese prime ministers have traditionally been seen as consensus-builders, lacking flair, charisma and the skills to be anything other than reactive leaders, constrained by a political system which privileged a strong bureaucracy and Liberal Democratic Party structures. Recent literature has, however, begun to explore prime ministerial agency, considering the ways in which Japanese prime ministers have been able to demonstrate stronger leadership not only because of an expansion of their power resources in the core executive and the party, but also because of their individual leadership skills, style and personal attributes. Drawing on studies which have highlighted the impact of Japanese prime ministerial agency, this article uses the Leadership Capital Index (LCI) alongside insights from crisis management literature to explore the latter months of Abe Shinzō's premiership. It considers the ways in which personal factors interacted with institutional and situational factors in shaping Abe's political authority during the final year of his prime ministership, with a particular focus on the pandemic period. It asks why, when Abe had otherwise been considered one of post-war Japan's strongest and most decisive leaders, did he fall short during the Covid-19 crisis? To what extent did his personal skills and leadership style help or hinder his ability to lead during the crisis? The article suggests that the LCI offers insights into ways in which, and why, Abe's apparently strong leadership skills went missing in action during the global pandemic.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | Abe Shinzō, Covid-19, Japanese prime ministers, leadership capital index, prime ministerial leadership |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Languages Cultures & Societies (Leeds) > East Asian Studies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 May 2022 14:27 |
Last Modified: | 07 Nov 2024 15:45 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/20578911221104286 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:187240 |