National university reforms introduced by the Japanese government

Japanese universities have long enjoyed high levels of academic autonomy and freedom, particularly at the department and faculty levels. A series of recent university reforms introduced by the government, however, has changed this landscape in complex ways. The rationale behind these reforms is that they will strengthen the autonomous capacity of institutional governance and management in a pattern of policy borrowings following trends in Europe, East Asia, and North America. However, in the implementation of these reforms, various nationally inherent aspects have made university autonomy more ambivalent both conceptually and in reality. In the last two or three decades, government and societal interventions in universities have increased through various reforms in university governance and management. This chapter examines the impact of these government-led reforms on university governance and the management of Japan’s national (public) universities since their corporatisation in 2004. On the basis of this analysis, the author discusses how Japan is positioned regarding university autonomy, governance, and management in the international context.