Major public policies for institutional governance in France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the past two decades are reviewed, and factors that may account for differences in policy developments in the three countries are considered. In France and (although only recently) in Sweden, politics have aimed at increasing institutional autonomy in higher education. British universities are considerably more independent from central government than are their counterparts in either France or Sweden. It is suggested that both demands and policies directed at increasing participation and autonomy in higher education are manifestations of broad social and policy trends in these countries. The concept of political culture is proposed to aid in understanding the variable feasibility of comprehensive reform in the three countries. It is also suggested that the contents of policy proposals may be attributed at least partially to the variations in participation by specific interest groups in policy formulation. The diverse efforts in each country to evaluate and explain reform implementation regarding institutional governance are also examined. An attempt is made to show that the transformation of institutional governance has been linked both to the development of systems of higher education from elite to mass systems and with broad social and policy trends toward participation and decentralization. (SW)