Elvis Has Left The Building; Under Koizumi, social change ripped the pillars out from under the old political system.

Byline: Gerry Curtis (--Curtis is a professor of political science at Columbia University.)

Junichiro Koizumi, the most dynamic, popular and idiosyncratic prime minister in recent Japanese history, will leave behind an impressive record of achievements when he relinquishes power to his successor later this month. He also leaves behind an equally daunting number of questions about the future of Japan.

Koizumi's biggest achievement over the five and a half years he has held office was to spark a new sense of optimism in the people, after more than a decade when nothing seemed to go right. He came into power with an upbeat message: embrace market reforms, stop wasteful government spending, take risks. And he delivered that call to arms in a plain-spoken way that had no precedent in Japan.

Koizumi was very popular, but, in an important sense, he was not a populist. He never pandered to public opinion. He told the public that strong reform medicine would revive the country, and they believed him. With his long hair, Elvis Presley impersonations and a ruthless attitude toward those in his own Liberal Democratic Party who dared to oppose his program, Koizumi struck a chord with a public sick of politics as usual.

The Japanese embraced their "cool" prime minister, and Koizumi used that public backing to force recalcitrant LDP members to accept policies anathema to party traditions. In his first year in office, he cut spending on public works by 10 percent, and he continued to reduce it by more than 3 percent a year after that. He forced the privatization of the postal system, which ran the country's largest bank and insurance company. A master of political theater, he called a snap parliamentary election when LDP veterans balked at adopting that privatization. He purged powerful faction bosses and prime-ministerial hopefuls who opposed him, running new candidates, including many women (quickly dubbed the "assassins"), against them. The public was ambivalent about postal reform until Koizumi threw down the gauntlet. But wowed by his take-no-prisoners approach, voters gave the LDP the biggest victory it had seen in decades.

In Japanese politics and government, consensus means a lot. It's a principle the prime minister has been expected to respect, and it is painstakingly arrived at by mostly informal and ...