The Mystery Prime Minister; Abe's challenge is to convince the Japanese of the idea that he is cerebral and strategic, whereas Koizumi acted mostly on instinct.

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

The Japanese don't quite know what to make of their new prime minister, Shinzo Abe--and with good reason. There isn't much in his background to indicate whether he has the ability to run a ministry, much less the entire government, his only previous cabinet post having been as Koizumi's chief cabinet secretary and chief spokesman. He has staked out an ideological position

well to the right of center of his Liberal Democratic Party, but it is uncertain how far his own party will let him go in converting his views into concrete government policies.

The public is supportive of their new and, at 52, refreshingly young leader. Abe's colleagues in the LDP are more coldly pragmatic: once they accepted that there was no other credible contender in the race to succeed Koizumi, they nearly all jumped on the Abe bandwagon. It follows that if Abe falters, it will not be long before they leap off it--and turn against him.

Abe's challenge is to convince the public of the idea that he is cerebral and strategic, whereas Koizumi acted on instinct; and also that he is a team player who knows how to persuade rather than a loner who intimidates. And he has to do all that without appearing to be taking politics backward. Koizumi made style a source of power. Abe must focus on substance and use his policies to rally public support.

The problem is that Abe, even more than most Japanese leaders who have preceded him, has come into power without a clear policy agenda. So far, his speeches have been about the kind of country he would like Japan to become without saying which specific policies he wants the Diet, Japan's Parliament, to adopt. He would like to see Japan revise the Constitution, but he has not said specifically how he'd like to change it, and on what timetable. A well-known proponent of a more muscular foreign policy, his major proposal in his inaugural policy speech in the Diet was to have the government "study" where it might relax the restrictions on the Japanese military.

Abe says that Japan needs to continue to pursue market-oriented reforms, but he also wants the government to take action to counter growing income inequality. All this while cutting spending and wiping out the fiscal deficit. And he has yet to take a position on whether to raise the consumption tax. ...