Family-Run Universities in Japan: Sources of Inbuilt Resilience in the Face of Demographic Pressure, 1992–2030

Abstract

Minister to dissolve Parliament, and the issue of human rights in the Japanese Constitution are still relevant today. The Japanese Prime Minister must still act with caution in the light of sensitive party factional balances in considering when to go to an election. The human rights issues, notably freedom of speech, remain a problem more generally in Japanese society today (see Stockwin & Ampiah, 2017, for insights into this contemporary issue). The volume tells us much about David Sissons, the man and the scholar. A gentle and shy person, who did not chase personal fame or reputation, he was nevertheless dogged in his pursuit of the facts which would help answer the research problems he had posed. Probably best known today for this path-breaking historical research on the Australia–Japan relationship in its many avenues, Sissons was a familiar face at the Australian Archives reading room in Canberra for many years, where he would always provide advice to those who were trying to find their way around government documents and the associated complexities of the bilateral Australia–Japan relationship. Sissons’ important research, which has been brought to the light again in these volumes, reminds us of the quiet influence he had within the discipline over the many years when he was at the ANU, the relevance his research continues to have for scholars today, and the further impact that his collected papers at the National Library are likely to have into the future as they are accessed by other scholars.