Graduate School of Policy Sciences

Program Outline

The Graduate School of Policy Sciences offers programs that are designed to develop human resources who can propose theoretical and empirical policies based on multi-disciplinary knowledge in the social sciences in order to respond to the changes and challenges in the 21st century. Besides faculty members in such fields as sociology, economics, business administration, law, and public administration, we invite people from outside the academic field who are actively working on various issues as teaching staff.

In this way, we offer interdisciplinary education and conduct research covering different fields based on collaborations of people in diverse disciplines and through the study of research ability/methods. In addition to a daytime curriculum that is designed to prepare students to work as a researcher, an evening course is available for people who are seeking to further their professional careers.

Policy Science specialization has three fields of emphasis, (1) area and community policy, (2) organization policy and (3) environmental policy. The curriculum has the following distinctive features and effort is made so that individual fields can be studied systematically.

The first distinctive feature is pursuit of interdisciplinarity, and instructors specializing in sociology, economics, administration studies, and laws, etc., cooperate and collaborate in Policy Seminars in each program.
The second feature is emphasis on analysis of examples, and 10 or more case study subjects are provided.
The third feature is emphasis on Field Work in Social Research or in Policy Studies, which are as a rule required subjects. The recommended style of master’s thesis is the policy proposal based on data collection by students themselves in conformance with specific objectives and analysis thereof.
The fourth feature is respect for involvement with society, with preparation of the Policy Studies Support Project and the Policy Studies Acceptance Project for self-governing bodies, etc.
The fifth feature is the aim to work toward actual specific problems while performing theoretical and fundamental consideration appropriate for the university.

Area and Community Policy Program

Represented by decentralization and deregulation, there has been an ongoing progress in the reconsideration of role sharing and mutual relationships among the national government, self-governing bodies and local residents. The era of rigidly uniform community development--since the Meiji era--is finished and the era of attractive community development based on local creativity and ingenuity has arrived.
Formation of original policy emanating from local areas and communities is essential for attractive community development, and the Area and Community Policy Program pursues this from both the aspect of theory and of practice.
The first topic is temporal and spatial research and analysis concerning the positioning of attractive community development in the local community, Japanese society and international society.
The second topic is research and study with regard to policy formation processes for attractive community development. The principal in community development is the municipality, but the national and prefectural government are also involved in complex ways. Through analysis of such policy formation processes, more desirable modes of existence for politics and administration are sought out, and, in addition, research and study is performed concerning ways of participation by local residents and responsible approaches to community development.
The third topic is evaluation of community development policy and research and studies on policy resources.
The fourth topic is research and studies of tangibles and intangibles in specific community development and town planning.
Community development has come to a turning point in specialization, and in the Area and Community Policy Program, we pursue making contributions to theory and practice in spearheading this transformation.

Master’s Course, Doctor’s Course

• Major in Policy Sciences