121tackle the challenges in higher education that could no longer be solved through the
mere borrowing of policies from the “more advanced” Western models.
Nakamura ( 2007 ) criticized the tendency of some higher education researchers
to utilize the term “globalization” as a buzzword. He tried to make a contribution on
meritocracy by examining the Japanese entrance examination process (Nakamura
2003 ). This approach was rather orthodox among Japanese social scientists in
higher education (see, e.g., Amano 1990b). At the same time, this type of theoretical
contribution was also being made by comparative education researchers. For exam-
ple, Ogawa ( 2001 ) researched the equity of access to higher education and the labor
market with a focus on ethnic minorities in China.
The US higher education system has certainly played a role in the debate on the
future direction of Japanese higher education. However, the US higher education
system is based on a highly decentralized federal system and on a highly developed
and well-established market in which both education and research activities are
completely different in nature from those of the Japanese higher education system.
On the other hand, Europe experienced social and financial difficulties in the 1980s
and also faced the challenge of reintegration after the collapse of the socialist regime
in the USSR and Eastern Europe around 1990. At that point, Europe started to form
a regional higher education arena; this process was accelerated due to the Bologna
Process beginning in 1999.
This transformation of the European higher education system was monitored,
surveyed, and analyzed by higher education researchers in Japan, especially in rela-
tion to quality assurance and the internationalization of higher education (see, e.g.,
Yoshikawa 2003 ; Kido 2012 ). However, again, the regional and geographic context
of East Asia is completely different from that of Europe, which had already started
a systemic regional integration.
Seeking New Models for Japan’s Higher Education
What drew more attention from Japanese policy makers was the rise of new public
management policies in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom. Starting in the
mid-1980s, research on the UK higher education system became popular among the
experts and policy makers of higher education in Japan. While the UK higher edu-
cation system had been referred to among higher education researchers in Japan
even before 1980, it was seen as an ideal but not realistic model of elite and free
higher education. However, after Thatcher’s revolution, the UK higher education
reform became a model for the introduction of new public management into higher
education, not only for Japan but also for other, mostly continental European, coun-
tries (Tanaka 2005 ). The introduction of a contract between the government and
universities in 1992 in France, as well as other reforms in university evaluation in
Europe, was also surveyed and analyzed by researchers in Japan, primarily in
response to requests by policy makers (see, e.g., Oba 2009 ). The models for policy
borrowing became further diversified through worldwide structural changes.
6 Higher Education Research in Japan: Seeking a Connection with the International...