Departures Podcast with Tobias Harris

Up until his recent resignation due to health concerns, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cast a long shadow as one of the most remarkable global statesman, shaping the country’s alliances and leadership position in an extremely difficult and threatening region of the world.

Journalist and author Tobias Harris, author of “The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan,” joins the Departures podcast to discuss the complexities of the legacy he leaves behind, and the challenges his successor Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will face.

Harris argues that one aspect of Abe’s legacy will be his transcendence of partisan factions, as the coalitional nature of the Liberal Democratic Party allowed the organization to internally battle over policy positions and cabinet positions as opposed to the Prime Minister dictating policy to his party. And yet, despite the cross-factional consensus Abe was able to develop and the nationalist pursuits of great power status and the reforms of Abenomics, “his legacy is one of failure, at least by his own terms,” says Harris.