Japan's Chance to Resist a Turn to the Right

After a landslide victory in Japan’s election on July 10th, the Liberal Democratic Party now has a supermajority in both the upper and lower houses of the Diet. Essentially, there is no longer any effective political opposition in Japan. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has more power than any leader in decades -- even more than his famous grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who served as prime minister in the 1950s. Most importantly, his twin supermajorities give him the ability to get constitutional reforms through the legislature and put them to a popular referendum, where they need only a simple majority to pass.

The country therefore stands at a crossroads; the choices Abe makes have the potential to refashion Japan’s institutions. Essentially, Abe faces a binary choice between making Japan a more liberal country or a more illiberal one.