This seminar explores the phenomenon that the prime minister is becoming stronger in Japan at the same time that the UK prime minister seems to be weakening. Traditionally the Japanese prime minister was regarded as a transient, weak, compromise figure but this has changed in recent years. In the UK, intra-party and executive-legislative dynamics have shifted in a way that has weakened the prime minister.

Although not suggesting any causal link, the speakers are interested in explaining these two phenomena, exploring how prime ministerial leadership has traditionally been understood and measured in both countries, and asking whether these approaches are fit for purpose. The seminar will explore factors such as the broader socio-economic context, the core executive, party relations, individual styles and skills, celebrity politics and psychological factors. This project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s UK-Japan Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Connections grants.

About the contributors

Professor Hugo Dobson
Professor Hugo Dobson is Professor of Japan’s International Relations at the University of Sheffield. He was awarded his PhD from the School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield in 1998. His thesis explored Japan’s participation in United Nations-sponsored peacekeeping operations. He has worked as a research fellow in the International Centre for Comparative Law and Politics at the University of Tokyo (1997-1999) and as lecturer in the international relations of East Asia in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent (1999-2000). He returned to the School of East Asian Studies in 2001 as a lecturer in Japan’s International Relations, becoming a senior lecturer in 2005 and a professor in 2009.

Professor Caroline Rose
Professor Caroline Rose is Professor of Sino-Japanese Relations at the University of Leeds. She has worked in East Asian Studies at Leeds since 1996, having undertaken a BA in Modern Chinese Studies and subsequently a PhD at the university. Her research and teaching interests include contemporary China-Japan relations; Japan’s international relations; Chinese and Japanese citizenship education; the politics of history and memory in East Asia. She has worked extensively on the ‘history problem’ in Sino-Japanese relations, with particular reference to textbook issues, the Yasukuni Shrine issues, the compensation movement, and the apology issue. Current research includes a major study of history and citizenship education in China and Japan, a new project about trust and friendship in East Asia.

Dr Timothy Heppell
Dr Timothy Heppell is Associate Professor of British Politics at the University of Leeds. He completed his doctorate at the University of Newcastle in 2000, and has two decades’ worth of experience of teaching undergraduate and postgraduate modules on British political parties, alongside considerable administrative work. He has authored six books, the most recent of which is Cameronism: The Politics of Modernisation and Manipulation with Manchester University Press (2019). He has also edited four books, contributed twenty chapters in edited books, and published over forty articles in leading political science journals such as the Journal of Common Market Studies, Government and Opposition and the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.