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Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda resigned Sept. 1. The change in leadership will not shake Japan out of political stagnation or improve its ailing economy.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda resigned Sept. 1, almost exactly a year after his predecessor Shinzo Abe, also of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), did the same. Fukuda claims he left the political scene to give his party a better chance at breaking the country’s political deadlock and shaking Japan out of policy inaction.

But political personalities are not the cause of Japan’s woes. Rather, Japan’s inefficient and firmly entrenched economic and political system has proved nearly impervious to attempts at reform. And with the onset of recession, the possibility of major economic and social upheaval looms as large as ever.

Throughout the 1990s, Japan survived repeated economic recessions by promoting cheap and easy credit and debt accumulation. The economy survived by periodic public spending packages, and would sink back into lethargy when these wore off. The purpose was to keep employment high, regardless of the costs to Japan’s efficiency. Entrenched interests hardened the country’s political establishments, and both the ruling party and opposition party matched each other in their resistance to any inkling of reform.