Curriculum Policy and Chart

The Principles of the Curriculum

The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen  Japan’s  national  and  local  governments engage  with  the  existing  issues  of  decentral- ization  reform  and  local  sovereignty.  During this time, in an initiative of its own, the Graduate School of Governance Studies has undertaken to  establish  public  policy  studies  as  a  holistic science with a view to supporting “endogenous local development” through horizontal partner- ships  among  communities  both  domestically and internationally. Based on these public policy studies, it is our goal to produce well-educated political and administrative professionals with the breadth of knowledge and vision, keen insight, and good analytical and decision-making skills needed  to  address  the  issues  involved  in  ever more complex and specialized policymaking.

Curriculum Structure

The curriculum structure is of the cross-curricular type. First, to provide an understanding of gov- ernance from all aspects, the courses that make up governance studies are arranged in “fields”* which offer a broad international perspective within the three disciplines of politics and admin- istration, economics and public finance, and law (not offered in English), together with an array of policy studies courses designed to familiarize students with the actual status of developments in these areas. The Graduate School offers five course-taking models as follows, the five combinations of the fields most relevant to the different professional needs and interests found among our students, thus allowing them to choose the study model most suited to their personal goals. The five are: (1) the Urban and Local Politics (Focus: cultivating political leadership; intended students: elected representatives and leaders, and people who wish to enter politics); (2) the Local Government Management (Focus: innovating public adminis- tration ; intended students: people already in or wishing to enter public service); (3) Innovating the publics (Focus: creating new local communities; intended students: private corporations, employ- ees of NPOs, self-employed worker, professional of welfare and education etc. and community members); (4) the International Development and Cooperation (Focus: resolving global issues; intended students: people who are engaging in global businesses, and people who wish to enter global businesses); and (5) Consumer Policy and Market Growth (Focus: protecting consumer interests and market growth; intended students: those who work in the field of consumer issues). In addition, students develop their actual prob- lem-solving skills in Research Paper 1 and 2 and other practical seminars, and the final research paper is assessed after careful examination.

Distinctive Features of the Curriculum

The Graduate School of Governance Studies is a center that brings together. On one hand, sophisticated students with a particular interest (and perhaps previous work experience) in areas such as community building and renewal, and on the other, recent university graduates who aspire to create the communities of the future. This way, it forms a learning hub where innova- tive ideas germinate, spread, develop, and feed back into the creative process. This is made possible thanks to exchanges of information and personal contacts among wealthily-experienced ones, including the full-time and visiting pro- fessors of the Graduate School, special invited professors, and part-time / adjunct lecturers. Although we too use the word “graduation,” in fact many of our alumni remain involved in ongo- ing projects, and this continuity has been highly productive. In particular, the Governance Policy Research Network, the Urban Policy Forum, the Public Quality Management (PQM) Forum, and the Governance Salon are nodes of practice and research that serve to link not only fellow alumni but also alumni and current students—giving our graduates a very real presence on campus.