Vulnerable autonomy: university governance in the context of student activism in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

A managerial model of shared governance is adopted in Hong Kong’s public universities to uphold university autonomy. However, with the political confrontation characterised by the rise of student activism, the sustainability of the managerial form of university autonomy requires review and re-exploration. This paper aims to examine the influence of political unrest on university governance in Hong Kong. Drawing on data from interviews with university council members and student leaders, this paper reveals how university autonomy is upheld in the current governance structure, how different stakeholders variously understand the nature and roles of university, and how these disparate understandings interact with the wider political environment and bring pressure on universities. The paper argues that though university management intended to be politically neutral for upholding institutional autonomy, the space for avoiding politics had been narrowed. This narrowing process illustrates the vulnerability of university autonomy in Hong Kong.

KEYWORDS:

• University governance
• institutional autonomy
• student activism
• protest
• Hong Kong

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

Ethical approvals for these studies were obtained from Human Research Ethics Committee, The Education University of Hong Kong.

Notes

1. Yung Mo (勇武) or ‘valiant’ are the ones who see themselves as guerrilla fighters and are on the front line of clashes with police; Wo Lei Fei (和理非) literally means ‘peaceful rational, non-violent’ and refers to ones who do not fight with the police (Purbrick, 2019).

2. According to Kwong (2018), ‘in the political situation in Hong Kong, localism refers to a political movement that concentrates on the preservation of local identity and resists political control by the Chinese government’ (p. 367).

Additional information

Funding

Work on the paper was supported by grants from the Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee (Project No. 18606017) and Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office, Hong Kong SAR Government, Hong Kong (Project No. SR2020.A5.015).

Notes on contributors

William Yat Wai Lo

William Yat Wai Lo is an Associate Professor and the Associate Head of the Department of International Education at the Education University of Hong Kong.