Political Culture and Higher Education Governance in Chinese Societies: Some Reflections

Over the past decades, higher education governance and university management have become increasingly complex worldwide in a context of unprecedented expansion and diversification. Driven by both external and internal pressures, higher education reforms in different nations have often been reported to follow a similar pattern: shifting from the control model to the supervisory model in nearly all aspects of their relationship with universities. While such a trend in Chinese societies has been well documented in the literature, few people have been able to identify the sticking point of higher education governance there. As a result, the concept of a doomed cycle continues to linger obstinately, viewing power delegation as leading to market disorder which, in turn, leads to tighter control. This article points out the neglect of Confucian political culture and its importance for studies of higher education governance reforms in Chinese societies. It aims to demonstrate that Western theories of and approaches to governance and autonomy in higher education cannot be simply applied to other societies of highly different historical and cultural traditions. By so doing, it attempts to shed some light on debates over governance and autonomy in higher education in a much wider context.