Defense buildup and a more hawkish security posture: Such is Japan’s pivotal policy today amid escalating regional tensions under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

Synthesis This paper seeks to explore and analyze the Marcos Jr. administration’s consolidation of power amid a deepening crisis of legitimacy. It argues that the regime’s trajectory reveals a governance model anchored in elite accommodation, technocratic spectacle, and the selective use of reformist discourse to obscure entrenched patronage and authoritarian tendencies. While early efforts at regime-building enabled the alignment of key institutions—the legislature, judiciar