This article draws on Gramsci’s theory of passive revolution to explore the second tenure of Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō from 2012 to 2020. It sees the high degree of political stability that Abe achieved as a contrast to the preceding two decades of Japanese politics and asks what accounts for Abe’s success in restoring Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) dominance in an era of enduring economic and social crisis. The article argues that Abe executed a strategy of passive revolution that incorporated two “faces”: an “outward” face oriented around consent and an “inward” face rooted in coercion. The former involved economic policies (in particular “Abenomics”) designed to appear capable of resolving chronic economic stagnation, growing inequality and other social and economic problems, restoring popular support for the LDP without undermining conditions for capital accumulation or empowering subaltern classes. In contrast, the latter involved various low-profile security and administrative policies that enabled the Abe government to dramatically increase its power while silencing or disarming potential rivals and critics. The article sees this two-sided strategy of passive revolution as effective in restoring LDP dominance but unlikely to prove the basis for a more expansive hegemony or a resolution to Japan’s organic crisis.

本文借鉴了葛兰西的被动革命理论，探讨了日本首相安倍晋三在2012年至2020年的第二任期。它看到安倍晋三在政治上的高度稳定与日本前二十年的政治形成了鲜明对比，并提出了什么这说明安倍晋三在持久的经济和社会危机时代成功地恢复了自民党（LDP）的统治地位。文章认为，安倍晋三执行了被动革命战略，其中纳入了两个“面孔”：面向同意的“外向”面孔和根源于胁迫的“向内”面孔。前者涉及旨在似乎能够解决长期经济停滞，不平等加剧和其他社会经济问题的经济政策（尤其是“安倍经济学”），恢复对自民党的支持，而又不破坏资本积累的条件或赋予下属阶级权力。相比之下，后者涉及各种低调的安全和管理政策，这些政策和政策使安倍晋三政府能够显着提高其权力，同时使潜在的竞争对手和批评家沉默或解除其武装。文章认为，这种被动革命的双面战略在恢复自民党主导地位方面是有效的，但不太可能证明其为更广泛的霸权或解决日本的有机危机的基础。