Japan's New Prime Minister Takaichi: What Can We Expect?

Veteran politician Sanae Takaichi made history on October 21, 2025, becoming the first woman to assume the position of Japan’s prime minister. What can we expect from the new prime minister and her cabinet? What impact will the collapse of the 26-year-old Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)/Komeito partnership have, and how should we understand the LDP’s new partnership with Ishin (Japan Innovation Party)? How does “Sanaenomics” pick up where “Abenomics” left off? How is the new government likely to handle relations with the United States and regional neighbors? How will the prime minister’s expertise in economic security issues shape her foreign policy?

 

Expert panel (in alphabetical order):

 

Amy Catalinac is an Associate Professor of Politics at New York University. She is a scholar of electoral systems, distributive politics, and contemporary Japanese politics. She is the author of two Cambridge University Press books, Dominance Through Division: Group-based Clientelism in Japan (2025) and Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan (2016), as well as articles in journals such as the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, World Politics, and Comparative Political Studies. She earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University, where she was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, and has held positions at Australian National University and Princeton University. Professor Catalinac is currently serving as Associate Editor at the Journal of Politics.

 

Christina L. Davis is the Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics in the Department of Government and Director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University.  During academic year 2024-25 she was on leave at Oxford University (affiliated to Queen's College) as the Centenary Visiting Professor in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Her research interests include the politics and foreign policy of Japan, East Asia, and the study of international organizations with a focus on trade policy. Her research has been published in leading political science journals. She is the author of Food Fights Over Free Trade: How International Institutions Promote Agricultural Trade Liberalization (Princeton University Press 2003), and Why Adjudicate? Enforcing Trade Rules in the WTO (Princeton University Press 2012, winner of the international law best book award of the International Studies Association, Ohira Memorial Prize, and co-winner of Chadwick Alger Prize). Her latest book, Discriminatory Clubs: The Geopolitics of International Organizations, was released by Princeton University Press in July 2023. Currently she is working on several projects on the evolving trade order and economic sanctions. Education: AB in East Asian Studies, Harvard 1993; Ph.D. in Political Science, Harvard 2001.

 

Saori N. Katada is Professor of International Relations at University of Southern California, and the Director of the Center for International Studies. She served as the vice president of International Studies Association and on the editorial team of Review of International Political Economy. Her book Japan’s New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific was published by Columbia University Press in 2020, and its Japanese version was published from Nikkei Press in 2022. Her other book Banking on Stability: Japan and the Cross-Pacific Dynamics of International Financial Crisis Management (University of Michigan Press, 2001) received the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Book Award. She is a co-author of two recent books The BRICS and Collective Financial Statecraft (Oxford University Press, 2017), and Taming Japan’s Deflation: The Debate over Unconventional Monetary Policy (Cornell University Press, 2018). She has also published six edited and co-edited books, two books in Japanese, and numerous articles on the subjects of trade, financial and monetary cooperation in East Asia, as well as Japanese foreign aid. Saori N. Katada is a Nonresident Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR).

 

Adam P. LIFF is associate professor of East Asian international relations at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, where he also serves as founding director of its 21st Century Japan Politics & Society Initiative. His research focuses on international security affairs and the Asia-Pacific—especially Japanese and Chinese security policy; U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy; the U.S.-Japan alliance; and the rise of China. Beyond IU, Dr. Liff is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Associate-in-Research at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Politics from Princeton University, and a B.A. from Stanford University.

 

Phillip Y. Lipscy is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, where he is also Chair in Japanese Politics and Global Affairs and the Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Japan at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. In addition, he is cross-appointed as professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo. His research addresses substantive topics such as international cooperation, international organizations, the politics of energy and climate change, international relations of East Asia, and the politics of financial crises. He has also published extensively on Japanese politics and foreign policy. Lipscy’s book from Cambridge University Press, ‘Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations,’ examines how countries seek greater international influence by reforming or creating international organizations.

 

Daniel M. Smith is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests cover a range of topics in comparative politics, political economy, and political behavior, with a core focus on political institutions and democratic representation. He has regional expertise in Japan and Western Europe. He is the author of Dynasties and Democracy (Stanford University Press, 2018) and co-editor of the Japan Decides election series. He holds a PhD and MA in political science from UCSD, and a BA in political science and Italian from UCLA.

 

This event is jointly organized by the 21st Century Japan Politics and Society Initiative (Indiana University), Asian Institute & Centre for the Study of Global Japan (University of Toronto), Program on U.S.-Japan Relations (Harvard), and the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS).