In what should not be considered a surprising move, a politician has called for early elections to try to consolidate his power for just a bit longer. In an environment of national insecurity due to encroaching forces from the same forces that always encroach, Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, began campaigning last week for the elections to the lower house of Parliament. The snap call was Abe’s attempt to keep his party’s majority in the Diet so as to reverse the pacifist Japanese constitution’s prohibition of a national military. North Korean aggression and Chinese expansion, aside from the immediate threat they pose, have been wreaking havoc on his favorability, with ratings dropping to as low as 30% over the summer and only now stabilizing at 50% (or so).

Because the nature of the threats facing Japan is unpredictable, there’s no telling where his favorability might fall in another three, six, or twelve months — when the elections are normally scheduled to take place. Calling for these early elections is Abe’s informal recognition of the severity of his region’s instability and unpredictability; he sought to use his peaked favorability to centralize his power before his favorability fell too low to try.

Prime Minister Abe is a $300 dollar textbook definition of the employment of Rational Choice Theory; his political self-interest presented to his people as a sense of nationalistic altruism can only be satiated by a continued hold on power. This isn’t to undermine his ability to lead his country through this trying time. He necessarily believes that his track record of leadership is the only one suited to face the treats against Japan, and his desire to start a national military, which flies firmly against the country’s status quo, can only come to fruition if his power is centralized reliably in parliament, if his favorability remains high, and if he can thoroughly discredit the opposing party.

Abe probably sees his calling for early elections as fundamentally patriotic; believing truly that his proposed methods of dealing with North Korea and China are better than any other, the snap elections are a protection for his people against the less capable leaders of other parties.

Moreover, his desire for investment in education and childcare instead of paying the national debt are policy initiatives that are, at the core, motivated by the desire for the better living of the people. However, by pursuing policy that seeks to improve the social welfare of his people, he is undeniably looking towards a jump in his favorability, which will keep him in power for longer. The positive feedback loop of his policy proposals and his tenure in office is not unique, but it can help speak more directly to his reasoning behind the call for snap elections.

Rational Choice Theory, while it helps to speak volumes about the timing of the snap elections, is limited in this scenario because it does not directly speak to the reasons why the Prime Minister of Japan (and his people in general) fear the encroachment of the North Korean regime and Chinese forces – aside from, of course, geography. The Structural lens can be employed to understand the relations between these countries and Japan fairly well — Japan’s history of colonialism in the Korean peninsula, which sought to exclusively wipe out Korean culture in Japan, prompted violent forms of resistance by the Koreans and has resulted in intensely strained relations ever since.

The remnants of colonialism are not dormant — the effects of Japan’s hyper-interventionist and colonialist practices can still be found in both countries. This lens can also be used to understand the relations between China and Japan — the disputes over the Senkaku Islands, which are currently controlled by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan. These islands are close to key shipping lanes and bountiful fishing, and there has been evidence produced to support the possibility of oil reserves. For the second and third highest GDP countries, the promise of economic gain from these islands being threatened by claims from the other makes any encroachment all the more worrisome.

There will be considerable change with which to contend in East Asia if Abe remains in power and is able to both achieve his goal of beginning the process of instituting a national military and shift focus away from the national debt. Prime Minister Abe knows that these desperate times call for desperate measures.

However, at the end of the day, there exist only two possibilities: his party will either retain its majority or be thoroughly embarrassed.