Abstract
When it comes to foreign and defense policy and the 2014 election, there is a mystery at the heart of the subject, similar to the old mystery of why didn’t the dog bark in the night? Jeff Kingston poses the apt conundrum about Abe: why does he remain popular and win elections despite most Japanese disagreeing with almost all of his policies (see Kingston, this volume, and his article in JT October 25, 2014, web)? Nowhere is this question more relevant than in foreign and defense policy in the 2014 election. Polls reveal deep divisions among the Japanese public on Abe’s foreign policy these last two years, with significant portions of the population avidly disagreeing with his unprecedented moves in the areas of defense and historical memories1; and yet once again Abe and the LDP won a landslide election in 2014.
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© 2016 Ellis S. Krauss
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Krauss, E.S. (2016). Unraveling the Abe Conundrum in Foreign Policy: The Mystery of the “the Dog That Didn’t Bark”. In: Pekkanen, R.J., Reed, S.R., Scheiner, E. (eds) Japan Decides 2014. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137552006_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137552006_18
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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