THE POLITICS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN POST-WAR JAPAN

Abstract

This is a study of policymaking in Japan. It deals with the period since World War II and focuses on policymaking in three specific areas of higher education: university administration) specialization and differentiation, and finally enrollment expansion. As such it seeks to go beyond the single case study which is often presented as sui generis while at the same time being more empirically based and data intensive than broader macro-theoretical approaches. The key focus is on the isolation of three discrete and independent patterns of policymaking: policymaking by camp conflict, incremental policymaking and pressure group policymaking. Which pattern is more likely is seen to be a function of the mutual reinforcement of several specific variables concerning the scope, affect and divisibility of the individual issue around which policy is made, plus specifically political variables concerning relevant legal requirements and the., organizational and mobilization capabilities of the political actors most directly involved. This basic framework of analysis presented in Chapter Two. The issue, related variables are analyzed in Chapter Three, where university administration is found to be high in affect, broad in scope and non-divisible, enrollment expansion is conversely low in affect narrow in scope and highly divisible while the third issue, specialization arid differentiation, is found to represent something of a midpoint. On all three, issue variables. The political variables are examined in Chapter Four. Japan is dominated by the politics of what .is called ''hegemonic bipolarity in which two political monopolize the political arena but only one, the conservative camp, has consistently been in charge of the governmental apparatus and has been far stronger and more mobilizable on the most issues than the opposing progressives.