Japan’s Leadership Deficit

Observing Japan's Tobias Harris, doctoral candidate in political science at MIT, has written a great piece for the Far Eastern Economic Review on the lack of Japan's leadership. Harris is the author of Observing Japan (www.observingjapan.com), a blog on Japanese politics. It's a great read, so check be sure to check it out!

The travails of Taro Aso and, more recently, Ichiro Ozawa, combined with the ascendance of Barack Obama in the United States have left many Japanese with leadership envy.Prime Minister Aso himself may have a mild case of it: Following the recent passage of the Obama administration’s stimulus bill, Mr. Aso admired the speed with which the new U.S. administration acted and lamented that he was unable to do the same. Similarly, in his 2006 book “Ozawaism,” Mr. Ozawa wrote of Japan as a “country without leaders” and detailed his efforts to train future leaders in his annual workshop. Messrs. Aso and Ozawa are joined by politicians and journalists from across the political spectrum who bemoan the country’s ability to produce inspiring leaders, leaders like Mr. Obama capable of inspiring people far beyond their nation’s borders instead of serving as the butt of jokes at home and abroad. The foreign press has echoed domestic Japanese sentiment. As Christian Caryl recently asked in Newsweek, why are Japan’s politicians so bad?