Former Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo's assassination at an election campaign event in Nara, Japan, is both shocking and puzzling. It is shocking because Japan has known almost no political violence for at least a half-century, and because gun ownership in the country is tightly controlled. It is puzzling because Abe, having stepped down as prime minister in 2020, had no formal government role; yet the killing was plainly a political act.
Abe's death is unlikely to have any impact on the July 10 elections for Japan's House of Councillors, which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party was already expected to win comfortably. The tragic loss of the LDP's former leader and prime minister may add some sympathy votes by increasing turnout, but it has mostly astonished and bewildered a country that is unaccustomed to such violence.
Abe's legacy from his record-setting tenure as prime minister is more notable for its effects on Japanese foreign and security policy than on domestic affairs. To be sure, Abe was a good salesman for his economic-policy agenda, which he successfully promoted under the banner of "Abenomics"; but, in the end, it was his foreign policy, not his economic programme, that was transformative.
