by JEFF KINGSTON
Abstract: Signaling by politicians, bureaucrats, and educational administrators plays a key role in curbing academic freedom in Japan by highlighting taboo subjects and funding priorities. Structural constraints on autonomy, however, represent the most insidious threat to academic freedom. Neoliberal reforms enacted in Japan over the past two decades have compromised academic freedom and undermined university autonomy. Overall, under the pretext of reform, higher education has become more rigidly hierarchical while there is a chronic lack of diversity that fosters narrow groupthink. On Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s watch, online harassment of academics surged while prominent revisionists targeted scholars over interpretations of wartime history.
This essay is excerpted from the chapter “Contesting Academic Freedom in Japan”, included in the volume New Threats to Academic Freedom in Asia, edited by Dimitar D. Gueourguiev and released by Columbia University Press in 2022.
Compared to other countries in Asia, the threats to academic freedom in Japan may not seem especially severe. Scholars are not beaten, jailed, tortured, or killed for expressing their opinions as they are, for example, in China, India, Turkey, and Myanmar. Nevertheless, academic freedom in Japan is at risk because scholars do face marginalization and harassment for expressing their views on controversial issues such as Japan’s wartime past. Although Japan enjoys a good international reputation as an advanced industrialized democracy, an Academic Freedom index published in 2020 by the Global Public Policy Institute placed Japan in the second tier of nations, along with Indonesia, but behind South Korea and Taiwan in tier one (Global Policy Institute 2021).
One key development in the region over the past decade is the role of social media and how netizens are mobilized to target dissent and curb freedom of expression through intimidation (Kingston 2019). This orchestration of online harassment targets scholars, journalists, and media organizations in campaigns of vilification and threats of violence.
In Japan, the government rewards scholars who do not make waves and tends to marginalize those who do, relying more on carrots than sticks. Academic freedom and freedom of expression are specifically protected in the Constitution, but that does not mean adequate protection for those who express dissenting or critical views about controversial issues. Signaling plays a crucial role in curbing academic freedom. Nobody needs to explicitly ban specific subjects or opinions, but everyone knows what will court retribution and marginalization.
In 2017, during one of many scandals that erupted during the Abe administration, the term sontaku (that is, ‘carrying out unspoken orders’) became a popular buzzword. In this case, officials covered up wrongdoing implicating Abe, anticipating this is what was implicitly expected, as a means of currying favor (Seig 2018). Sontaku depends on reading a situation, and responding appropriately, an artform in Japan that is intrinsic to the winnowing process. Someone who is unable to comprehend how they are expected to react is deemed kuuki yomenai (literally, ‘unable to read the air’), with a connotation of cluelessness. Successful scholars are usually adept at reading the subtle signs and do not have to be told what is off-limits and know that there may be a cost to defiance. Academics and researchers who play the game well by embracing or endorsing government views are often dismissed as goyogakusha (‘lapdog scholars’), but they enjoy the prestige of serving on government shingikai (advisory panels) and the privileged access this confers. Such postings can also boost promotion prospects and be financially rewarding. While shingikai are designed to give the impression that bureaucrats are crafting policies in consultation with scholars, the substantive role of these academics is more like window dressing, conferring legitimacy on decisions already taken (Slater and Danzuka 2015).
Revisionists Ascendant
While threats to academic freedom in Japan are not new, the two Abe administrations (2006–7 and 2012–20) presented novel challenges. Beginning with his landmark 2006 Patriotic Education bill aimed at nurturing patriotism among students, Prime Minister Abe spearheaded assaults on academic freedom. In doing so, he advanced his longstanding agenda to overcome what he and other revisionist ideologues termed ‘masochistic’ history (Harris 2020: 55–58). After returning to power in 2012, Abe passed educational reforms in 2014 and 2015 that further tightened government and rightwing influence over secondary school textbook content (Koide 2014). Authors of these textbooks are now required to support official views on subjects such as territorial disputes and the comfort women. Moreover, local textbook committees lost their autonomy and became subject to far greater central government influence.