Why Truss Lasted 44 Days, Meloni Shifted to Realism, and Takaichi Remains Untouched — How Political Structures Decide the Fate of Populists

Introduction: It is not personality, but structure, that decides a populist’s fate

Liz Truss survived only 44 days as UK Prime Minister.
Giorgia Meloni entered office after a campaign filled with hard-right rhetoric, yet pivoted quickly toward pragmatic governance.
Japan’s Sanae Takaichi, despite repeated statements that raise international concern, shows no visible sign of political risk.

All three share core features of right-wing populism: clear enemies and allies, anti-elite narratives, emotionally charged slogans, and direct mobilization of resentment. Yet their outcomes differ dramatically — early removal, structural normalization, and political impunity.

To understand why, we must look beyond individual character and examine each country’s underlying political structure: its market dependence, party system, bureaucratic capacity, media autonomy, international constraints, and the strength of citizen participation.

Chapter 1: The U.K. — A “Market State” where parties and markets select the Prime Minister

● A state that lets markets evaluate policy in real time

Since the Thatcher era, the UK has evolved into a highly financialized market state.
At its core is the City of London, one of the world’s largest financial centres, where capital from global investors constantly flows through UK bond and currency markets.
As a result, UK government debt is widely held abroad and market reactions feed directly back into fiscal credibility and the stability of any sitting government.

In such a system, unsustainable policies are punished almost instantly. Truss’s unfunded tax cuts triggered a collapse in sterling, a bond market rout, and a near-meltdown of pension funds — a direct clash with the core logic of the market state.

In practice, bond yields and currency markets now act as a faster “no-confidence vote” than the electorate itself.

● The Conservative Party protects the party brand, not the leader

Under the Westminster model, a Prime Minister’s authority is derived from the parliamentary party. The Conservative Party has institutionalized leadership challenges and is accustomed to replacing leaders before elections to protect its chances of staying in power.

Once markets rebelled and polling collapsed, Conservative MPs judged that Truss had become a liability. They chose to defend the “Conservative Party brand” and electoral viability, not their leader.

● A media ecosystem structurally biased toward skepticism

British media — from the BBC to the FT and even tabloid papers — maintains an ingrained culture of skepticism toward those in power. Regardless of ideology, the central question remains: “Does this policy withstand empirical and fiscal scrutiny?”

In Truss’s case, markets, the party, and the media formed a rapid correction mechanism. Her fall was not simply a personal failure, but the predictable outcome of colliding with the UK’s market-centered political structure.

Chapter 2: Italy — A “Constraint State” where external and internal limits force normalization

● Enduring coalition politics dilute extremes

Postwar Italy has almost always been governed by coalitions. Proportional representation, regional parties, Catholic–secular divides, and ideological fragmentation all contribute to a system in which no single party can govern alone.

Meloni may enjoy electoral momentum, but she still has to negotiate with partners in parliament. This process naturally strips away the most extreme parts of any manifesto.

● The EU and the Eurozone as “external sovereignty”

Italy’s chronic fiscal deficits and high public debt make it heavily dependent on the EU and the Eurozone framework. Fiscal rules, recovery funds, and financial backstops impose hard constraints on government policy.

If Meloni were to govern in line with her most radical campaign rhetoric and openly defy EU rules, Italian bonds would be punished and EU funding could be jeopardized. Her government would quickly face a major crisis.

In this sense, her shift toward realism is less a personal moderation than a structurally forced adaptation to a constraint-heavy environment.

● A political culture that separates campaign rhetoric from governing behavior

Italian voters are not naïve about this duality. There is a tacit understanding that campaigns are the arena for symbolic and emotional language, whereas governing requires negotiation within EU and coalition constraints.

Populist leaders may speak loudly during elections, but once in office, they must operate within a dense web of institutional limits. Meloni is simply a leader who has learned to survive within a “constraint state.”

Chapter 3: Japan — An “Unrestrained State” where no actor seriously checks political power

● A country that has effectively lost the “discipline of markets”

Japan is often described as a country that can finance its debt domestically. In its most extreme form, this has become a system in which the Bank of Japan holds a large share of government bonds.

Under this structure, even if fiscal risks accumulate, bond markets do not necessarily send an immediate alarm. Exchange rates are driven more by global monetary conditions than by domestic political missteps.

In practice, Japan has largely lost the UK-style “market verdict” on government policy. Political failures do not clearly show up as rising yields or collapsing currencies, and therefore politicians do not pay a direct price.

● Parties have evolved into protection mechanisms for politicians

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has accumulated enormous power through long-term one-party dominance: factions, funding networks, local organizations, and control over appointments. These could have served as tools of internal governance, yet in today’s context they often function as protection mechanisms for individual politicians.

Scandals and inflammatory statements are weighed not in terms of institutional damage, but in terms of factional balance and electoral calculations. Figures like Takaichi, who can mobilize a loyal base with strong rhetoric, are often viewed as valuable assets to be shielded, not restrained.

● Bureaucracy, media, and society all weakened as checking forces

Japan once had a strong bureaucratic state. But political control over appointments and a culture of “political leadership” have eroded bureaucrats’ ability to say “no” to elected officials.

Major media, constrained by press-club rules and commercial pressures, increasingly treat politics as infotainment. At the same time, low voter turnout and a pervasive sense of “nothing will change anyway” have weakened civic pressure.

As a result, Japan lacks the UK’s selection mechanism and Italy’s constraint mechanism. It is drifting toward an “unrestrained state,” where no actor effectively checks political overreach.

Integrated Assessment: Three structural models, three political destinies

The trajectories of Truss, Meloni, and Takaichi can be summarized as follows:

This comparison highlights how structurally unusual Japan has become. When a right-leaning populist leader emerges, the UK system tends to remove them, the Italian system tends to normalize them — but the Japanese system often simply lets them continue unchecked.

Japan’s core problem today is not any single politician, but the political architecture that does not activate responsibility. As long as the system protects politicians instead of restraining them, the same issues will repeat, regardless of who holds office.

For Japan to safeguard its future, it must transform itself from a country that protects politicians into a country that protects the political system itself.

But can Japan truly make that shift?
Or will the country have to wait until the system breaks on its own?