Shinzō Abe (安倍 晋三 Abe Shinzō, born 21 September 1954) is a Japanese politician serving as Prime Minister of Japan and Leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2012. He previously served as Prime Minister from 2006 to 2007 and Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2006. In early 2019, Abe surpassed Shigeru Yoshida to become the second-longest serving Prime Minister in post-war Japan and is currently the third-longest in Japanese history.

Abe comes from a politically prominent family and was first elected Prime Minister by a special session of the National Diet in September 2006. Then aged 52, he became Japan's youngest post-war Prime Minister and the first to have been born after World War II. Abe resigned on 12 September 2007 for health reasons after his party lost the House of Councillors election that year. He was replaced by Yasuo ♥♥♥♥♥♥, the first in a series of five Prime Ministers who each failed to retain office for more than sixteen months.

Abe staged a political comeback, and on 26 September 2012 he defeated former Minister of Defense Shigeru Ishiba for the LDP presidency. Following the LDP's landslide victory in the 2012 general election, he became the first former Prime Minister to return to the office since Shigeru Yoshida in 1948. He was re-elected in the 2014 general election, retaining his two-thirds majority with coalition partner Komeito, and again in the 2017 general election.

Abe is a conservative whom political commentators have widely described as a right-wing nationalist. He is a member of the revisionist Nippon Kaigi and holds revisionist views on Japanese history, including denying the role of government coercion in the recruitment of comfort women during World War II, a position which has created tension with neighboring South Korea. He is considered a hard-liner with respect to North Korea, and advocates revising Article 9 of the pacifist constitution to permit Japan to maintain military forces. Abe is known internationally for his government's economic policies, nicknamed Abenomics, which pursue monetary easing, fiscal stimulus, and structural reforms.

Shinzō Abe was born in Tokyo to a politically prominent family. His family is originally from Yamaguchi Prefecture, and Abe's registered residence ("honseki chi") is Nagato, Yamaguchi, where his grandfather was born. His grandfather, Kan Abe, and father, Shintaro Abe, were both politicians. His great-great-grandfather, the Viscount Yoshimasa Ōshima, served as General in the Imperial Japanese Army. Abe's mother, Yoko Kishi, is the daughter of Nobusuke Kishi, prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. Kishi had been a member of the Tōjō Cabinet during the Second World War. Since GHQ's policy changed and became more anti-communist, Kishi was released from Sugamo Prison, and later established the Japan Democratic Party. In his book Utsukushii Kuni e (Toward a Beautiful Country), Abe wrote, "Some people used to point to my grandfather as a 'Class-A war criminal suspect', and I felt strong repulsion. Because of that experience, I may have become emotionally attached to 'conservatism', on the contrary."

In 1955, Shigeru Yoshida's Liberal Party and Kishi's Democratic Party merged as an anti-leftist coalition and was reestablished as the LDP. Abe attended Seikei Elementary School, Seikei Junior High School and Seikei Senior High School. He studied public administration and graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science from Seikei University in 1977. He later moved to the United States and studied public policy at the University of Southern California's School of Public Policy for three semesters. In April 1979, Abe began working for Kobe Steel. He left the company in 1982 and pursued a number of government positions including executive assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, private secretary to the chairperson of the LDP General Council, and private secretary to the LDP secretary-general.

Shinzō Abe was elected to the first district of Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1993 after his father's death in 1991, winning the most votes of the four Representatives elected in the SNTV multi-member district. In 1999, he became Director of the Social Affairs Division, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary in the Yoshirō Mori and Junichirō Koizumi Cabinets from 2000–2003, after which he was appointed Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Abe is a member of the Mori Faction (formally, the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyū-kai) of the Liberal Democratic Party. This faction is headed by former prime minister Yoshirō Mori. Jun'ichirō Koizumi was a member of the Mori Faction prior to leaving it, as is the custom when accepting a high party post. From 1986 to 1991, Abe's father, Shintaro, headed the same faction. The Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyū-kai has 60 members in the House of Representatives and 26 in the House of Councillors.

In 2000, Abe's home and the office of his supporters in Shimonoseki, in Yamaguchi Prefecture, were attacked with molotov cocktails on numerous occasions. The perpetrators were several yakuza members belonging to the Kudo-kai, a Kitakyushu-based designated boryokudan syndicate. The reason for the attacks was believed to be that Abe's local aide refused to give cash to a Shimonoseki real estate broker in return for supporting a Shimonoseki mayoral candidate in 1999.

Abe was chief negotiator for the Japanese government on behalf of the families of Japanese abductees taken to North Korea. As a part of the effort, he accompanied Koizumi to meet Kim Jong‑il in 2002. He gained national popularity when he demanded that Japanese abductees visiting Japan remain, in defiance of North Korea.

He was the leader of a project team within the LDP that did a survey on "excessive sexual education and gender-free education". Among the items to which this team raised objections were anatomical dolls and other curricular materials "not taking into consideration the age of children", school policies banning traditional boys' and girls' festivals, and mixed-gender physical education. The team sought to provide contrast to the Democratic Party of Japan, which it alleged supported such policies.

On 23 April 2006, Abe was elected as the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. His chief competitors for the position were Sadakazu Tanigaki and Tarō Asō. Yasuo ♥♥♥♥♥♥ was a leading early contender but ultimately chose not to run. Former Prime Minister Yoshirō Mori, to whose faction both Abe and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ belonged, stated that the faction strongly leant toward Abe.

Abe's father Shintaro Abe served in the House of Representatives from 1958 to 1991 and was foreign minister from 1982 to 1986; he is the son of Kan Abe, who served in the House from 1937 to 1946. Abe's mother, Yoko Abe, is the daughter of Nobusuke Kishi, a wartime cabinet minister imprisoned as a "Class A" war crimes suspect following the war, who by 1957 had become Japanese prime minister. His older brother, Hironobu Abe, became president and CEO of Mitsubishi Shōji Packaging Corporation, while his younger brother, Nobuo Kishi, became Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Abe married Akie Matsuzaki, a socialite and former radio disc jockey, in 1987. She is the daughter of the president of Morinaga, a chocolate manufacturer. She is popularly known as the "domestic opposition party" due to her outspoken views, which often contradict her husband's. Following her husband's first stint as prime minister, she opened an organic izakaya in the Kanda district of Tokyo, but is not active in management due to the urging of her mother-in-law. The couple have no children, having undergone unsuccessful fertility treatments earlier in their marriage.

In addition to his native Japanese, Abe speaks English.