Domination by ‘money power’: one year after the corporatization of national universities
OZAWA Hiroaki (Translated by NAKAYAMA Izumi)
Abstract
The corporatization of national universities, which was brought into effect in October 2003, and whether it belongs to the category of legal protection within the debate on Japan's academic freedom and university autonomy, is debatable. The National University Corporation Law signifies the fundamental transformation of Educational Civil Servant Special Law and other post-Second World War university laws. However, it is undeniable that the transformation of national universities into independent and corporate entities forms the core of policy deployment of global capitalism, and its political manifestation, neo-liberalism. I would like to position the actualities of national universities, after one year of corporatization, within the process of economic and financial 'money power' domination.
Author’s biography
Ozawa Hiroaki is Professor of Department of History, Faculty of Letters at Chiba University, Japan. His Research fields include modern and contemporary history of East Central Europe; theory of nationalism and ethnicity. He is also executive secretary of Metropolitan Network against National University Corporation Act.
Translator’s biography
NAKAYAMA Izumi is an assistant professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at The University of Hong Kong. Her research interests focus on gender, labour, and science in modern Japanese and East Asian history. She is currently revising her dissertation, which examined the history of menstruation leave in Japan, as well as translating an autobiography written by a Japanese Communist nurse working in China during the Asia-Pacific War and the Chinese Civil War.