Context

In what way can we consider Ishimaru a populist? A major claim of Ishimaru’s during the election was that he would “clean up the political system of status-quo politicians” (seijiya wo issō). Ishimaru is here calling out politics as “dirty” while suggesting that the political system itself lacks forward momentum. This phrasing not only follows general tropes of populist rhetoric but also reveals Ishimaru’s attempt to depict himself as a political outsider, and as such makes him a political entrepreneur. Political entrepreneurs are, according to the comparative politics literature, actors that work in and around government (Kingdon Reference Kingdon2014) while expending their resources in pursuit of their policy agenda or political change (Mintrom Reference Mintrom2020). As entrepreneurs, they set themselves apart from established political actors by introducing “innovation” into the political system in pursuit of their agenda. Here, innovation means either the introduction of something new or reintroducing an old idea to make it appear new (de Vries and Hobolt Reference de Vries and Hobolt2020).

Ishimaru’s rhetoric follows the populist tropes of Hashimoto and Koike who, as political entrepreneurs, advocated their own brand of outsider politics to find electoral success. For example, Hashimoto was a former lawyer/television personality who rose to prominence in Osaka with his firebrand anti-establishment attacks on the public sector and legacy media organizations. Hashimoto’s “strongman” efforts at offering shortcut solutions to Osaka’s problems boosted his popular support. In Tokyo, Koike played on her background in media and an acrimonious split from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to buttress her populist “outsider” image. As a populist, Koike pointed to collusive decision-making in the capital as a basis for her claims that she would return government to Tokyo’s people.

Tokyo’s 2024 gubernatorial election had conditions ripe for an entrepreneur like Ishimaru to appear. The election was notorious for its high volume of fringe or dummy candidates. While fringe candidates are not uncommon, they comprised most of the election’s record number of 56 candidates, leading Uchida Tatsura (Reference Uchida2024) to call them “democracy highjackers.” Uchida argues their prevalence is due to a “waning of political maturity,” which he suggests is a palpable sense of political discontent that has developed in regard to the LDP’s legacy of self-serving acts during its long-term rule. Public antipathy toward status quo politics was also evident in the election results. Ishimaru surpassed Ren Ho, the frontrunner opposition candidate supported by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), by 375,101 votes. This rejection of a major-party candidate might be attributed to a weakening of ideology in voter preferences, as reports suggest that younger voters are distancing themselves from the ideological nature of left–right politics (Asahi Shimbun 2024). Therefore, when Ishimaru claims he will “clean up the system,” he is taking aim at not just Japan’s political elites but its political culture as well. On one hand is the ideational aspect: Politics is “dirty” and must be cleaned up for the public. On the other hand, Ishimaru infers that the system is suffering from some organizational or institutional inertia which, when cleaned up, will break from the status quo. This suggests that our analytical approach must consider how entrepreneurial populists will attempt innovation at the ideational and institutional levels.

First, we take an ideational approach to analyzing our entrepreneurs’ attempts at personalizing the executive. In brief, entrepreneurial populists have coopted the ideational trajectory of the concept of political reform (seiji kaikaku) with neoliberal ideas to attack what they see as an elitist political system. In the mid-1960s, the term “reform” (kaikaku) became ideologically associated with progressive local governments (kakushin jichitai) and left-leaning opposition parties that challenged the national LDP government over its poor handling of environmental and welfare policies. However, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, neoliberal advocates created a shift in the ideational understanding of reform by reorienting its terminology away from civic engagement toward managerialist concepts of public administration. A spate of “innovative” reformers (kaikakuha) created an administrative reform (gyōsei kaikaku) boom by adopting the language of organizational efficiency and customer satisfaction seen in the then-popular New Public Management (NPM) approach to public administration. As with managers of private businesses, NPM places strong emphasis on managers in overseeing efficient and competitive organizations, which found some credence in politics around the world as economic slowdown put pressure on many governments’ public spending.

The key example here is Ōmae Ken’ichi, former McKinsey and Company (hereafter McKinsey) Japan’s chief consultant and management “guru.” In the early 1990s, Ōmae attempted to bridge private-sector philosophies with government through his anti-establishment policy group, the Heisei Restoration Group (HIK; Heisei Ishin no Kai). Through the HIK, Ōmae advocated a Japanese version of “Reinventing Government,” an NPM-oriented philosophy of public administration that encourages governments to become more “entrepreneurial”—a euphemism for dissociating policymaking from bureaucratic practices and abandoning partisan approaches to politics in favor of technocratic expertise and “best practices” of government (Northey Reference Northey2024). Therefore, Yoshida (Reference Yoshida2020) is correct when he associates Japanese populism with a neoliberal ideology that populists have played upon for support in the wake of globalization’s impact on socioeconomic changes. To extend this thinking, this article suggests that the ideational approaches to reform in Ishimaru’s populism follow those of Ōmae’s, who advocated “policy expertise” and “customer satisfaction” in government. While Ishimaru’s rhetoric might not address the bureaucracy specifically, his calls for “professional” politicians (discussed below) broadly echo the “anti-establishment” themes now commonly attached to calls for reforming public administration.

Second, we take an institutional approach to analyzing our entrepreneurs’ attempts at personalizing the executive. The comparative politics literature suggests that local politics is a domain in which populists are likely to emerge. This is true in Japan, with Yoshida correctly attributing the development of populist strategies to the institutional arrangements of Japan’s local government. Whereas the national party system is roughly reflected at the local level, the US-style presidential system of separately electing an executive chief and a legislative assembly creates a dual representative system (nigen daihyō-sei) at the subnational level. Yet, unlike the US presidential system, Japan’s local legislative assemblies can hold the executive to account, while the executive has the formal power to dissolve the legislature. In other words, the potential for conflict between the two branches gives populist reformers the incentive to overcome possible institutional obstacles. Indeed Tsuji’s (Reference Tsuji2015) research shows that, no matter the partisan affiliation, reformist governors (kaikakuha chiji) have been the main source of political conflict in the last two decades. There are other incentives explaining why populists may be prevalent at the local area. Local politics can be seen as the “the realm of administration,” whereby there is a greater perception of the public’s connection with the government, which might result in closer scrutiny of an elite’s performance and efficacy in administrative matters (Drápalová and Wegrich Reference Drápalová and Wegrich2021: 8). As we will see below, these institutional issues factor into the populist playbook used by Hashimoto and Koike.

As populists use their rhetoric for ideational appeals, it would follow that their administrations would aim to alter understanding of how governments operate. The above discussion showed how entrepreneurs used neoliberal and public choice concepts as ideational innovations to alter the understanding of political reform in Japan’s political imaginary. But how might populists navigate the complexity of political institutions once they are in office? This article suggests that entrepreneurial populists would attempt institutional innovation when trying to remodel the executive branch. Institutional innovation, as political entrepreneur scholars tell us, is where the very complexity of overlapping political institutions becomes a resource that makes innovation possible. For example, in an account of US presidents as innovating political actors, Sheingate (Reference Sheingate2003: 198) describes institutional innovation as a “speculative act of creative recombination that, when successful, transforms the institutional boundaries of authority. That is, entrepreneurs not only challenge existing jurisdictions—for example through the redefinition and recombination of existing functions—but also attempt to consolidate their innovation into new boundaries that confer authority upon them.” In other words, whereas institutional complexity is often seen as a constraint on one’s actions, entrepreneurs see it as a resource to exploit in their favor.

This notion of institutional innovation thus informs our analytical framework. To consider what a populist administration might look like, we must look at the innovations Ishimaru would likely have borrowed from the playbook Hashimoto and Koike used to personalize the executive. This article suggests there are three lessons Ishimaru might take away: (1) establishing legislative support, (2) expanding the personal political brand, and (3) institutionalizing outside “policy expertise.”

Establishing legislative support

At the time of writing, Ishimaru had launched his own political party. But why would he start a new political party if he was rallying against the political system? The comparative politics literature suggests that a major reason populists start parties is because “populist politicians and movements offer a powerful and convincing criticism of established parties” (de Witte Reference de Witte2018); de Vries and Hobolt (Reference de Vries and Hobolt2020) suggest that entrepreneur parties enter the political market from the fringes to appear innovative, allowing them to challenge dominant parties as a political outsider. While this is certainly true in Japan, the complexities arising from institutional arrangements following structural reforms have also created conditions for populist political entrepreneurs to try innovating party politics at the local level.

In Japan, the national party system is somewhat reflected in local assemblies. However, structural reforms beginning in the late 1990s, such as the decentralization process, large scale municipal mergers, and neoliberal economic reforms, created a trend of parties “delinking” from their national counterparts and forming local parties (rōkaru pātei) (Hijino Reference Hijino2013). Essentially, local parties are parties or political groups at the subnational level with no national organization. Hijino (Reference Hijino2013) argues that populist actors were compelled to begin new parties because governors had come into new policymaking powers that incentivized them to pursue independent policy agendas, while local voters were less inclined to align themselves with national party counterparts. Here, Hashimoto and Koike provide fine examples of the populist playbook’s first lesson in institutional innovation: establishing legislative support in support of a policy agenda.

Following their successful gubernatorial elections, both populists created local parties to expand their policymaking influence in their respective local legislatures. In 2010 Hashimoto formed the Osaka Restoration Group (OIK; Ōsaka Ishin no Kai), whereas Koike led the newly formed Tokyoites First (TF; Tomin Fāsuto), first as “special advisor” and then as its representative from 2017. The local parties of Hashimoto and Koike were first comprised of sitting legislative members who supported the governors’ policies, mostly from the LDP or other neoliberal centrist parties. Since 2010, the OIK has dominated Osaka’s legislative assembly elections. In 2017 Koike’s TF became the largest party in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG)’s 127-seat assembly, winning 55 seats in its first election. However, its influence has somewhat waned, having dropped to 31 seats in 2024 and losing its status as the largest party to the LDP. Yet, the influence of these populist entrepreneurs’ parties is not limited to local politics.

Innovation was not seen at the local level only. In Japan, former Diet members and bureaucrats “parachuting” into local politics is common practice. However, Hashimoto and Koike reversed the trend and expanded their political brand by “jumping” into national politics with their local parties. Prior to the 2012 general election, Hashimoto launched the Japan Restoration Party (JRP; Nippon Ishin no Kai). He created a national party because he needed constitutional revision to enact his policy agenda of creating an Osaka Metropolis, a variation of the dōshūsei—a large-region model of decentralization that Ōmae had staunchly advocated through the HIK. Koike’s launch of a national party in 2017—the Party of Hope (PoH; Kibō no Tō)—followed similar circumstances of public disaffection with the political status quo of the early 1990s, when a new party boom occurred following a series of major scandals involving the LDP. Koike launched the PoH with the intent of capturing voter support in the building public resentment toward Abe Shinzō’s involvement in numerous scandals, such as the Moritomo Gakuen affair.

Following the launch of their respective national parties, speculation about Hashimoto or Koike becoming future prime ministers was rife in the media; however, neither ran for national office. Instead, they remained in their current roles as governors and acted as co-leaders of their respective parties: Hashimoto shared the responsibility with former Tokyo governor Ishihara Shintarō, who had merged his own Sunshine Party with the JRP, while Koike co-led the PoH with former LDP Upper House member Wakasa Masaru. As de Vries and Hobolt’s theory suggests, both parties found success by appealing to voters in the electoral marketplace as an alternative. The JRP showed its credentials as a new choice for voters, splitting the then-governing Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) strength by taking 54 seats. Something similar happened when Koike formed the PoH, which won 50 seats.

Forming a local party is clearly an innovative strategy from the populist playbook. Despite losing the election, Ishimaru has already made moves to establish political support in the TMG legislature. Following Ishimaru’s surprise result in the gubernatorial election, the media speculated whether he would join forces with the JRP in national politics or form his own local party. In November 2024, Ishimaru announced to his social media followers his plan to form a party to contest the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) legislative elections scheduled for mid-2025. He was coy about forming a national party during a publicity discussion with the LDP’s Takaichi Sanae (NewsPick 2024). As expected, Ishimaru launched his own political party—the Path to Rebirth (PtR; Saisei no Michi)—in mid-January 2025 to run in the elections for the TMG assembly slated for that year.

Ishimaru’s aim for the party follows tropes of reform populism. Speaking of the party’s name, Ishimaru claimed that “Japan needs a change so that it can be reborn” (Asahi Shimbun 2025a). Ishimaru plans to run his new party in the TMG legislative assembly election slated for Summer 2025, indicating he will run one candidate in districts with three or less representative seats and two candidates in districts with four or more. Ishimaru also aims to distinguish his party from others by depicting membership in PtR as more an employment contract than a political organization. For example, one of his “innovations” is to limit party members to two 4-year terms in the legislature. In this way, he “[encourages] broad participation in politics by the people” (Asahi Shimbun 2025a), although he has indicated that former local elites and members with experience in legislative assemblies will be given priority as candidates (Path to Rebirth Homepage). Yet, despite his appeals for innovation, he abstained from discussing any policies during the press conference, reasoning that “I will not present our policies here. I will leave them to each candidate’s good judgement and decision” (Asahi Shimbun 2025a). Ishimaru’s favoring of incumbents for his party applications is in true Heisei Ishin fashion: Ōmae lobbied support for his HIK policy group to every Diet member, except those in the Japan Communist Party, if they supported his policies (Northey Reference Northey2024). Whatever his vision, Ishimaru received 1,128 applications at the close of the party’s application period.

Expanding the personal brand

After forming a party, Ishimaru will most likely ensure that the party follows the same goals as the leader. Yet, because Ishimaru did not advocate any policies at the party launch, the large number of party applications seems more attributable to Ishimaru’s popularity than any shared policy vision. Nevertheless, Ishimaru will still need to ensure support for his administration from both the legislature and the public should he ever become governor. Therefore, Ishimaru is likely to follow the second lesson from the Hashimoto and Koike populist playbook, which is creating a political academy (seiji juku) to expand a personal brand of politics.

Political academies in Japan are unaccredited educational organizations that “teach” ordinary citizens how to “do” politics, for example, employing campaigning techniques, conducting policy analysis, or even formulating policy ideas. They are often run by private actors, though some are associated with larger political parties, to train possible candidates. As such, educational programs typically focus on election campaigning skills, policymaking and formulation, and/or political clerical duties.

Despite the relatively little scholarly attention paid them, there are two general descriptions of their role in politics. The first suggests that political academies are designed to produce “leaders,” an idea based on the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, the well-known “prototype” academy formed by Panasonic founder Matsushita Kōnosuke in 1979 (Lam Reference Lam2006). The other suggests that academies are an innovative way of overcoming Japan’s high institutional barriers to running for public office (Ōki Reference Ōki2017). Yet, in a neoliberal context an argument can be made that Ōmae Ken’ichi’s opening of the Isshin Juku in 1995 is the prototype of political entrepreneurs opening short-course political academies resembling Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs with the intent to expand their personal brand or organization by developing “people of talent” (jinzai) (Northey Reference Northey2024; Ōki Reference Ōki2017). A basic meaning of jinzai is capable people, but in the neoliberal era it has become synonymous with describing people’s ability to effectively compete in a globalized economy or a trope used by public-choice theorists such as Ōmae to depict individuals as a resource for an organization’s performance or competitiveness (Northey Reference Northey2024). Following relatively unsuccessful general election campaigns in the early 1990s, Ōmae used his political academy to diffuse his policy ideas through the political system. The Isshin Juku has birthed an abundance of “Ōmae’s children”—over 245 graduates have been elected to public office in both local and national government nationwide, while students have presented their academy projects as policy proposals to multiple local governments (Northey Reference Northey2024).

Another way populists might benefit from political academies is through innovating ideational attitudes toward political participation. In an account of a new wave of governors in the 1990s in Japan, Jain (Reference Jain2004: 61) suggests entrepreneurial leaders are compelled to attempt innovation because of domestic and international pressures on socioeconomic conditions. One characteristic of entrepreneurial leaders is “transformational leadership.” For Jain, transformative leadership involves greater citizen engagement with the intention to “induce followers to act in accordance with the values and the motivations of both the leader and the followers themselves” (61). An example of this is former Mie governor Kitagawa Masayasu. Kitagawa was Japan’s first local governor to implement NPM policies but now oversees a nationwide manifesto initiative for local government public-private partnerships (PPP), attached to Waseda University’s Manifesto Research Institute. This initiative has seen over 1000 entries from non-government participants in its near 20-year history. In a similar way, entrepreneurial populists could use political academies to influence the general public’s understanding of their relationship with the political system.

As entrepreneurial populists both Hashimoto and Koike capitalized on their legislative support by creating academies to expand their political brand. Initially, Hashimoto’s academy, the Restoration Political Academy (RPA; Ishin Seiji Juku) matriculated 877 students from 3176 applicants, whereas Koike’s Academy of Hope (AoH; Kibō no Juku) matriculated 3747 students from 4800 applicants. Sixteen of Hashimoto’s academy graduates successfully ran in the Lower House election in 2012. Furthermore, numerous graduates from the academy have been elected in local elections in Osaka, contributing to the OIK’s dominance of Osaka’s legislative assemblies since 2012. In contrast, Koike essentially abandoned the AoH in 2017 after its influence in the general election proved minimal. Although she formed a new academy in 2022 aimed specifically at producing candidates for Tokyo’s legislative assembly elections, it attracted a relatively low 113 entrants.

Ishimaru has been vague on whether he will begin his own political academy, despite having clear connections with some. Ishimaru once guest lectured on the political reform of Akitaka City on a YouTube juku called Policy Entrepreneur Academy (Seiji Kigyō Juku). Furthermore, Ishimaru’s chief of campaigning in the gubernatorial election was Oda Zenkō, head of a political academy run by the LDP’s Tokyo chapter. Even Fujikawa Shinnōsuke, Ishimaru’s unofficial campaign advisor and political supporter, suggested starting a political academy to “steadily make friends and continue your connections with the political world.” However, Ishimaru was coy in response, suggesting that doing so would be just like the types of politicians (seijiya) he dislikes (Yahoo 2025).

But Ishimaru is clearly attempting to expand his personal brand of “business like” politics with the PtR. Some have suggested that Ishimaru’s policy-lite party launch painted the PtR clearly as a franchise party (seitō shōhō). But we can also suggest that the PtR itself resembles a political academy as well. For example, similar to Ōmae’s aspirations of producing a class of consultant-like experts in the Isshin Juku, Ishimaru claimed that he wants to use the party to “develop human resources (jinzai) as politicians” (Asahi Shimbun 2025a). Furthermore, Ishimaru will screen potential party members through an job-screening-like process, involving interviews and aptitude tests (Nikkan-Gendai 2025). This is another managerialist trope similar to that of Ōmae, who implemented private-sector-like “policy boards” to screen future candidates (Northey Reference Northey2024). And following the election campaign, Ishimaru said he will even run policy and political study groups (benkyōkai) for party members ( Path to Rebirth, 2025). In other words, Ishimaru is attempting to attract followers by advocating his entrepreneurial populism through the PtR itself.

This author suspects that, should Ishimaru begin a political academy, it will serve more of a function for political socialization. For example, Ishimaru stated he will offer advice on speaking, cooperation, and collaboration, as well as election activities—not unlike typical programs of political academies. But as the incumbents Ishimaru is hoping will join the party will not need “training” so to speak, the PtR, or any future political academy, would more likely function as a forum for policy coordination amongst members with experience in public office. However, an academy attached to the PtR would perform an educational function in which Ishimaru could impart to the public his approach toward the affairs of government.

Institutionalizing outside expertise

A final lesson from the populist playbook in how to personalize the executive is the use of outside “policy expertise.” Policy expertise can be considered authority-based policy knowledge provided by academics and industry professionals sitting on government committees and similar advisory councils. But as governments around the world embraced privatization, the advocacy of NPM ideas also increased. This led to the rise of epistemic communities of technocratic experts, such as think tanks and managerial consultancy firms, that advocated “best practices” of government that, they argued, can be applicable anywhere. The comparative politics literature tells us that local government is a breeding ground for the populist use of technocratic expertise because elites must demonstrate efficacy as the executive branch of administration (Drápalová and Wegrich Reference Drápalová and Wegrich2021).

In Japan, outsourcing to non-government actors has been a common practice of local politics for years, whereby outsourcing menial services such as sanitation or clerical or facility administration has been common practice (Takao Reference Takao2007: 95). However, following structural reforms in the 1990s and early 2000s and the end of the “agency delegated function” (kikan i’nin jimu), in which executive decisions were implemented through national government directives, local governors and mayors have been forced into new policymaking roles. This has introduced most local administrations to further complexities in policymaking. A trend of governments outsourcing administrative reform policies to management consultancies has led to concerns of the development of a “consultocracy”—i.e., public administration guided by unelected technocrats (Saint-Martin Reference Saint-Martin2000). Indeed, a clear trend toward using policy consultants and advisors can also be seen in Japan. Since the Heisei Ishin-led advocacy of reinventing government, zealous NPM-oriented governors have used the “democratic mandate” theory to justify their use of policy advisors as they rail against the bureaucratic nature of policymaking procedures, including legislative assemblies as policymaking institutions, as the enemy of the people (Northey Reference Northey2024).

In their appeals to appear responsive to the public’s needs, both Hashimoto and Koike also looked to outside policy experts in their personalization of the executive. As both Osaka governor and Osaka City mayor, Hashimoto used no less than 60 policy advisors (tokubetsu senmon) while in office. Many of his primary advisors were former bureaucrats, which is ironic given his anti-bureaucracy posturing. The most prominent was Ueyama Shin’ichi, a former bureaucrat and senior consultant with McKinsey. Ueyama was a key advisor behind many of Hashimoto’s neoliberal policies, such as privatizing Osaka’s subway system and waterways. Koike also employed many advisors, although not as significant a number as Hashimoto. Still, some of her advisors pushing neoliberal policies were either former Heisei Ishin members or McKinsey management consultants. In fact, Koike also employed Ueyama as a senior advisor, and unsurprisingly, Ueyama was behind her policy for privatizing Tokyo’s subway system. Both Hashimoto and Koike established new headquarters for administrative reform in which a core of their advisors held authoritative positions in advocating and designing policies. It can be said that these headquarters served two functions—one as an appeal of efficiency to the public and the other as extra-legislative agencies designed to obviate the legislative branch’s scrutiny (Northey Reference Northey2024).

Although Ishimaru was not elected to governor, he already has experience with a particular type of advisor: election campaign planners (senkyo purannā). Professional campaign planners in Japan are not as common as those in the United States, for example, due to Japan’s historical influence of local support groups (kōenkai) in elections. However, they rose in popularity following electoral system revisions in the early-1990s, and, coincidentally, the increased attention to “public choice” concepts in political discourse. One example of this relationship between entrepreneurial reformers and election strategists is Omae Ken’ichi appointing Miura Hiroshi, considered to be Japan’s first professional election strategist, as executive officer of the HIK.

Ishimaru’s use of election planners draws attention to the role of campaign advisors in advising entrepreneurial populists. During the campaign, Ishimaru received unofficial support from Fujikawa Shinnōsuke, the so-called god of campaigns (senkyo no kamisama). Fujikawa has supported establishment politicians, such as Takaichi Sanae, but also worked for other populist politicians and parties, such as Kawamura Takashi’s No Tax Japan (Genzei Nippon) and the Tokyo branch of the JRP. Most recently, Fujikawa attended a benkyokai (study group) for Koike’s TF group, offering advice on how to use social media to attract support of unaffiliated voters (Asahi Shimbun 2025b). Ishimaru’s use of election planners might seem ironic, given Fujikawa’s support for the type of establishment politicians against which Ishimaru is campaigning, or for divulging campaign advice to rival politicians. Nevertheless, Ishimaru’s use of such support strengthens this article’s claim by pointing to the likelihood of him following the lead of Hashimoto and Koike in using outside policy expertise in personalizing the executive.

Considerations

There is no doubt that the public support for Ishimaru’s 2024 Tokyo gubernatorial campaign was a telling sign that social media has buoyed the presence of populists in Japanese politics. For many, it was a welcome sight of civic engagement in a polity bogged down by seemingly endless scandals, entrenched traditions, and public distrust. Whether Ishimaru can sustain such mobilization either at the national level or in Tokyo’s next legislative elections will remain a major focal point of Japanese politics.

Clearly, approaches to studying populism in Japan will also be in demand. Nevertheless, such approaches must look beyond the role of social media and into considerations of how populists might govern once elected. The above discussion identified a trend in actual practices of populist governance in Japanese local politics. The following contextualizes their broader impact on Japanese politics in general as well as their relevance for future directions in a comparative approach to populism scholarship.

The examples above showed how reform populists will play on the democratic mandate they have been given. That is, populist executives in Japan attempt to personalize the executive by obviating hitherto institutional practices of governance. One way is the establishment of political parties to further the executive’s agenda. The entry of JRP and PoH into national politics ultimately weakened the mainstream opposition’s ability to coordinate a sustained challenge to the LDP’s grip on power. We might see similar disruptions to the local level party system as populist governors create local parties and disrupt the national–local relationship.

Another way is diffusing reformist ideas through the political system. Here, political academies both “train” prospective candidates and socialize like-minded politicians, thus becoming an innovative means for reformist populists to diffuse their ideas about politics and enhance their personal brand. Indeed, with the PtR, Ishimaru just might be killing two birds with one stone (isseki nichō) by merging the first two plays from the populist playbook.

Third, we must critically analyze the reliance of populist executives on outside policy advisors in key policy formulations. This is because historical examples suggest that, despite the claims of democratic mandates, the NPM-driven technocratic approach toward governing has provided much political space for large consultancy firms to use governments as clients as part of their global growth strategy (Northey Reference Northey2024; Saint-Martin Reference Saint-Martin2000). Relatedly, the Ishimaru example points to the importance of investigating the role of campaign and election advisors. To what extent campaign advisors influence the policies of populists is a genuine concern for scholarly research as populists around the globe are increasing their electoral success.

Finally, the examples discussed above indicate that Japan is not an outlier of populism but instead contributes compelling case studies in the comparative study of populist governance. The scholarship must be attentive to this as we seek to expand our understanding of populism globally—and not just its causes but also its effects.