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Prime Minister Shinzō Abe dissolved the lower house and called an early election in December 2014. The contest was also regarded as a referendum on his growth strategy, widely known as 'Abenomics'. Taking advantage of opposition parties' weakness and inability to conduct a successful campaign at such short notice, and with the lowest turnout in post-war Japan, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party emerged as the big winner, securing him a third term as premier.

Since the full democratisation of the country, with the launch of free and fair elections and the reinstatement of a functioning parliament at the end of the 1980s, South Korea's political scene has been dominated largely by two main parties, although their names and composition have repeatedly changed. At the end of 2012, Park Geun-hye, a popular figure from the ruling conservative party, was elected the first woman president in the history of the country.

South Korea is a dynamic participant in the activities of well-established regional organisations and fora in the Asia-Pacific region. The most relevant of these is the ASEAN Plus Three, with a project for a comprehensive economic partnership which could lead to the creation of a trading bloc encompassing half of the global market. The country's economic success is also fuelled by its popular culture spreading widely across Asia – a phenomenon known as the 'Korean wave'.

Japan's Liberal Democratic Party has been in power alone almost uninterruptedly for nearly four decades. Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, elected in 2013, is actively pursuing an economic growth strategy, widely known as 'Abenomics'. He decided to dissolve the lower house and call an election on 14 December 2014 to ask voters' support for his proposal of a consumption tax increase.

Since its entry into force after the Second World War, Japan's pacifist constitution has never been amended, and any attempt to revise it has always been a major political issue. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new foreign policy aims at a more assertive role for the country as a global actor, including in security and defence. In July 2014, his coalition government put forward a proposal to reinterpret Article 9 of the country’s constitution so as to allow the exercise of the right to collective self-defence ...