From nationalization to marketization: Changing governance in Taiwan's higher-education system

Abstract

The shift from "government" to "governance" has been widely debated both in the West, where the debate originated, and in the Asia-Pacific, where it is a strong emergent theme. In the West, early work concentrated on problems of government failure in the realms of regulation, welfare and development. This developed into a focus on the increasingly complex challenges facing modern states. By the mid-1990s, bodies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) were devoting considerable attention to issues affecting "governance in transition." At this time, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) issued its first discussion paper on governance. This emphasized the importance of bringing together the realms of governance, namely civil society, the state, and the private sector. All these developments signify a fundamental administrative paradigm shift to the "sociopolitical governance" model. This paper discusses the theme "from nationalization to marketization" by examining the origins and driving forces for changing governance in Taiwan's higher-education system. More specifically, the paper examines the changes in the role of the state in terms of three major aspects: provision, financing, and regulation in higher education, reflecting on how a new governance model has evolved in Taiwan.