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Evaluates the various factors that influence the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan. Details on international factors; Factors originating in mainland China; Factors arising from developments within Taiwan.

Examines issues surrounding the national unity and territorial integrity of Taiwan. Significance of national reunification of China and Taiwan; Discussion on the civil war started by the Kuomintang; Position of the Chinese government regarding the settlement of the Taiwan question.

Why do some movement parties successfully institutionalize into a functioning party organization while others struggle? This paper argues that not all movement parties institutionalize in the same way. Movement parties that emanate out of a long-term social movement organization face a qualitatively different set of challenges than those that form out of a short-term movement. Routinization—the process of parties developing rules, regulation, and predictable behavior—is a particularly crucial component for short-term movement party institutionalization. When parties emanate out of long-standing social movement organizations, they are advantaged because they already have existing formal rules and regulations. Short-term parties however, are disadvantaged because they lack these organizational structures. Further, short-term movement parties not only need routinization, but must make it a priority; the sequencing of their institutionalization matters. I demonstrate the importance of routinization with the case of Taiwan's New Power Party, a movement party formed out of the 2014 Sunflower Movement. This case shows how struggles to routinize early for short-term movement parties leads to crucial causal mechanisms hindering party institutionalization instead of helping it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the lifting of martial law in 1987, Taiwan has progressed toward one of Asia's most advanced democracies. This paper looks at the historical and socio-political circumstances and traces the global and domestic factors behind the transformation. Assuming that advanced levels of democratic governance can only be obtained through mediated social control over the state and the economy, the study explores whether democratic values and norms have become internalized and identifies the current caveats of further democratic development. More specifically, the paper argues that although Taiwan's democratization has been caused by external sovereignty-related factors, the discourse on national identity has repoliticzed the public political realm after decades of authoritarianism and led to the habitualization of democratic values and norms. The paper concludes with an assessment of the prospects for comprehensive and inclusive public participation in the shaping of Taiwan's political conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan is a liminal site of modernity in Asia. It is a modern exemplar as a liberal democracy with a developed economy, but is mostly unrecognized as a nation-state in the international system. In its liminality, however, it traces contours of modern power and their epistemological expression. This paper presents an account of Taiwan as an object of knowledge and representation in instances of scholarship and policy, Taiwanese politics, urban development and art, arguing that the narratives through which Taiwan is understood embed a lived experience as Taiwanese under forms of epistemological domination. The paper then explores Taiwanese responses of co-option and resistance in alternative sites of knowledge, and it concludes that the critical unexamined force in Taiwan’s experience of modernity is violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parties instrumentally shape or realign electoral support in competitive elections to underpin a vigorous party system. Assessing whether parties are strategic versus ignorant, then, is essential to the viability of the parties and particularly relevant in emergent democracies to eliminate unfounded biases against ignorant parties. The dramatic, lopsided results of Taiwan's 2008 legislative elections following electoral reform are particular useful in this regard: they suggest that the Kuomintang's Pan Blue coalition was strategic while the Democratic Progressive Party's Pan Green coalition failed to be strategic. We contradict this, using simulated electoral results and a strategic interaction model. This paper makes three contributions: first, it adds to a limited literature that considers parties influence, particularly parties’ strategic actions. Party-centric explanations are rare so that when results are highly disproportionate, the question of whether party choices are strategic versus ignorant adds an important dimension to clarifying how the party realigns electoral support or influences political development. Second, through multiple methodologies – simulated electoral results, a game-theory strategic interaction model, and reports on-the-ground in Taiwan – the results show that parties’ expectation of the other camp's strategy informed party choices, i.e., parties were strategic. Third, in revealing how parties were strategic, the paper reveals the basis of continued vitality of parties in Taiwan and other emergent democracies to broaden treatments in assessing party viability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper pursues the genealogies ofmi-yi(secret doctors) as a threshold figure to attend to the questions of state-mediated governance and knowledge power concerning medical modernity in postwar Taiwan. To consider themi-yifigure as symptomatic of Taiwan's medical modernity, I inquire into the question of how the scientific discourse of modernity as purported by the class of medical professionals converges with state power to discipline and regulate medical subjects and practices vis-à-vis the discourse ofmi-yi. To this end, I analyze the anti-mi-yidiscourse that emerged since the 1950s to discuss how the modern medical profession employed a language of science, rationality, and security that initiated an extended state surveillance of unregulated medical subjects and practices. The second part of the essay reads Chen Yingzhen's novella,Zhao Nandongas part of Taiwan's medical “archives” to explore the politics of embodied medical labor as a situated instance of the contradictions of medical modernity. I situate the literary imagination ofZhao Nandongin the social context ofmi-yidiscourse to frame the erased labor and violence, the ways in which the histories of these labors have been doubly obscured by the conflation of nationalistic historiography and positivist knowledge production of sociological categorizations of Taiwan's modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper extends understanding of the relationship between media use and attitudes toward democratic values. We employ the two-step estimation approach to examine the relationship between media use and attitudes toward democratic values as well as consequential association with political participation. The empirical results show that media use to obtain news information is positively related to attitudes toward democratic values. The findings also note that attitudes toward democratic values are positively associated with engagement in politics. The results support the argument that media use is significant for shaping citizens’ attitudes toward democratic values by providing information about public affairs and expanding citizens’ understanding about democratic politics. As such, media use facilitates democratic socialization and leads to more involvement in political behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the 2007 financial tsunami on the Taiwanese financial market. We find that, although significant for banks, security firms, and insurance companies, the effect was relatively lower if compared with that in Europe and the United States. In addition, we present fiscal and monetary policies issued by the Taiwanese government in reaction to the global financial crisis. These policy measures focused on stabilizing the financial market, reducing the level of unemployment, and creating more lending opportunities in support of Taiwanese companies. We also discuss the policy measures of the US government and other Asian countries in relation to the global financial crisis. Finally, we provide some suggestions to improve financial supervision and enhance financial reforms in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan is a vexed issue, and having no definite sovereignty status at the inter-state level, it carries the potential for conflagration. There is palpably a contradiction between its de jure and de facto status. Contradiction is also discernible in realizing the right brand of nationalism and the question of justice in adopting the appropriate hierarchical mode of governance. As such, there is a need to rethink its status and also the surrounding security architecture. The actors concerned may have to confront high stakes if its status quo is changed. The “one China” policy is accepted by all—but its varying interpretations and ambiguities in different official documents and pronouncements, made mostly keeping in view the geopolitical and nationalist compulsions, give rise to concern. It has turned out to be a flashpoint whose political status will, hopefully, be finally decided peacefully in a mutually accepted agreement through dialogue and confidence-building measures. This paper examines the present status of Taiwan and the suggested ways forward for its final settlement, keeping in focus the security, political and economic realities—both in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, as well as the surrounding region. There is a suggestion for a people-centric, like people being masters of their own destiny (people-first) solution—maybe in order to preclude the geopolitical complexities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to present a systematic approach to provide decision makers in the Taipei City Government and private developers with an opportunity to review their decisions on urban renewal project selections, and to provide a model which could be adapted for other locations. Design/methodology/approach - Porter's diamond model of competitive advantage is applied to establish evaluating criteria on urban competitiveness quality, and a fuzzy set theory combining the PROMETHEE method is used to determine the priority of projects. In assigning scores for urban sustainability, the expected return for each project is calculated for the economic dimension and a subjective scale has been used for the social and environmental dimensions. Genetic algorithms (GA) are introduced to search optimal solutions considering cost-score tradeoffs for decisions on investment ratio determination and renewal type selection. The proposed approach is tested by evaluating 13 urban renewal projects in Taipei City. Findings - The three-stage model proposed by this study has established a comprehensive and systematic approach that considers key factors in urban renewal, assesses renewal projects from the standpoint of urban competitiveness and sustainability, and provides decision makers with helpful guidelines for investment. Research limitations/implications - There is difficulty in re-examining social and environmental issues of the city government's earlier decisions became decision makers did not fully consider these two issues at the beginning of the planning stage, which is a limitation of this research. Originality/value - The results documented in the paper provide many other cities facing similar renewal decision problems with insightful strategies and useful implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan and South Korea have the same constitutional system, approximate economic scale, and similar cultural backgrounds, yet they differ in degree of corruption. What political structures and legislative processes cause this outcome is the major question posed in this paper. The political structure in South Korea is a centralization-of-power model, while that in Taiwan is a separation-of-powers model. This paper proposes that Taiwan and South Korea have different types of corruption and different political structures, and the legislative process in South Korea is more compromising than that in Taiwan. These factors contribute to greater corruption in South Korea than in Taiwan. This study clarifies how particular institutional dynamics reduce or enhance the prospects for democratic governance and help to better understand how political structure and legislative process channel different types of corruption into different degrees of corruption. Studies on the relationship between constitutional structure and corruption have concluded that parliamentarism can help reduce corruption more than presidentialism. This thesis argues that a country with centralized power tends to be less corrupt than a country with separation of powers. If this argument and the rationale behind it hold true for countries with both parliamentary and presidential systems, we can expect that semi-presidential countries with a centralized system are less corrupt than those with a decentralized system, all else being equal. However, by comparing these two semi-presidential countries, we find that South Korea, with its centralized model, was more corrupt than Taiwan, with its decentralized model. This comparative case study provides a counterargument to the conventional wisdom of constitutional structure and governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offers a historical account of the relationship between the media and politics in Taiwan. Relevance of this relationship to the democratic process in the country; History of journalism in Taiwan; Details on the close link between the media and the Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan; Concepts of the state and civil society used to investigate the changing structures and dynamics of the social and political system.

This research examines whether public political participation in Taiwan is influenced by people's interactive relations and social environments. In contrast to the "sociodemographic factor" and "political mobilization" approaches used in previous studies of political participation, this paper's theoretical structure is that of "cross-cutting networks." It analyzes the influence exerted by social network "cross-pressures" on voters' engagement in political activities and their likelihood of voting in the 2010 mayoral elections in Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taichung cities. The study uses national survey data to test the association between cross-cutting networks and political participation. The methodology adopted includes cross-tabulation analyses, ordered logit model, and logit model. The findings reveal that people in cross-cutting networks involving greater political disagreement are less likely to participate in politics while individuals engaging in homogeneous social interactions and under low level cross-pressure are predisposed to participate more actively in politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to seek to understand the differences in image repair strategies adopted by two governments that operate in the Western and Asian societies when faced with similar crises. Design/methodology/approach - Textual analyses are presented of communication of Hurricane Katrina and Typhoon Morakot by the Taiwanese and US governments, respectively. Findings - Faced with similar accusations of slow response, the Asian culture, represented by the Taiwanese Government, used predominantly mortification and corrective action strategies. The Western culture, represented by the US Government, used predominantly bolstering and defeasibility and a mixed bag of other strategies such as shifting the blame and attack the accuser. Research limitations/implications - A limitation of the study is that it depends on news reports, instead of news releases and speeches, for analysis. However, given the rapidity and volatility in the unfolding drama of each of the two crises, many of the comments made were to the media and not in prepared speeches. It is a limitation the authors accept. Practical implications - Strategies reflected Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance and power distance dimensions. These dimensions should be considered when designing communication strategies in different cultures so as to be culturally sensitive and relevant. Originality/value - Few, if any, studies on image repair theory have addressed the role of culture in strategies used. This study fills the gap by integrating Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Taiwan moved from being viewed as a model Asian democracy to one allegedly suffering from democratic reversal. The reasons for the declining domestic and international reputation of Taiwan's democracy are discussed. Lastly, some key political challenges facing Taiwan's democracy are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public management and quality in the public sector have a number of unique conditions in comparison with the private sector. They presume basic preconditions, common to sociopolitical and administrative culture: legitimacy, the rule of law and ethical behavior based on common values and principles such as openness, accountability, participation, diversity, equity, social justice, solidarity, collaboration and partnerships. Public policy is implemented in and by government agencies; this is the very place where the concept of Good Governance gets promoted first. The study demonstrates how qualitative performance evaluation is linked to dissemination of Good Governance, comparing more generally Asia with Europe in their pursuit of achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Government agencies in Taiwan and Estonia differ from historic viewpoint but share the path of democratization, offering original research for comparative analysis. The paper defines and contextualizes Good Governance by using a Common Assessment Framework (CAF) and evaluates its application in administrative agencies in respective small states. The findings suggest that effective promotion of good governance in transition societies depends mostly on political will and management commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the development of Taiwan's security policy by exploring the decision-making of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government under the leadership of President Chen Shui-bian from 2000 to 2004. The first part of the paper reviews the development of Taiwan-China relations and theoretical developments related to this subject, as well as the major theoretical approaches adopted by scholars and strategic analysts, to explain the influence of Taiwan-China relations on Taiwan's security. Next the paper attempts to define the structure and process of the security policymaking mechanism during Chen's government to identify the major "players" in the decision-making process and their roles. The last part of the paper examines the development of the referendum issue before the 2004 presidential election in order to show how President Chen's decision-making style affected the decision to how the controversial referendum in March 2004, and how such a decision-making mechanism makes a foreign policy crisis inevitable. This paper finds that President Chen and his DPP government have a top-down decision-making style in which the president is supreme in deciding foreign policy objectives. Limited numbers of high-ranking officials are consulted or involved in the formulation of key policy objectives. This decision-making style often leads to poor communication between different decision-making levels and sometimes misunderstandings among government agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a joint study of the prophecies attributed to Liu Bowen in circulation in Taiwan during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Liu Bowen was the courtesy name of Liu Ji, an eminent adviser to the Ming dynasty founder Zhu Yuanzhang (Ming Taizu, r. 1368- 1398). Since the late seventeenth century during the Ming-Qing transition, however, under the name of Liu Bowen, Liu Ji has been systematically mythologized as a legendary figure, becoming known as a clairvoyant prognosticator and an ingenious builder of imperial cities in modern times. In addition to a profusion of prophecies attributed to him during periods of social and political crises, he is best known as the author of a prophecy book known as Shaobing ge (Baked Cake Ballad), prophesying the events of China during the last six hundred years with incredible accuracy and proposing means of salvation. While his name and his works have been well known in mainland China, the Shaobing ge and other prophecies attributed to him were also in vogue in Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule and have remained in circulation in the island since its return to Chinese suzerainty after the Second World War. This paper is divided into four parts, with contributions shared by both authors. The first part gives a summary of the state of research on Liu Ji's Shaobing ge, tracing the inception of its prophecies in the late Ming and early Qing to the work of fiction writers and the propagandists of the anti-Manchu sectarian organizations and secret societies in the eighteenth century. Additional prophecies attributed to Liu Ji proliferated thereafter onto the 1930s. The earliest edition of Shaobing ge which the authors have seen or in their possession was printed in the late Guangxu period (1875-1908) but it was probably based on much earlier cruder manuscripts. The book has been well received in Taiwan since that time. The second part examines Taiwanese publications under Japanese colonial rule attesting to the popularity of Liu Bowen's alleged prophecies. The first source was discussions on the origin of the Shaobing ge and its purposes by Taiwanese scholars published in the Sino-Japanese Taiwan daily newspaper Taiwan Riri Xinbao, dated November 20 and December 3, 1898, the thirty-first year of Meiji. There one commentator suggested that the author of Shaobing ge may have been an adviser to the leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the mid nineteenth century, and pointed out that several individual prophecies later collected in the Shaobing ge were already well known in Taiwan at that time. Another Taiwanese publication gives information that Liu Bowen had been adulated by the local people as a deity of salvation and the Shaobing ge had been cited by ringleaders of the anti-Japanese Taiwanese uprising in Tainan in 1915 to presage victory. The third part of the paper examines the worship and distribution of Liu Bowen's alleged prophecies known as Liu Bowen chen or Liu Bowen xiansheng xianchu jiujiebei wen by a group of followers of the banned sectarian organization known as Yiguan Sect in the city of Gaoxiong in southern Taiwan in the 1960s. It reproduces the recently declassified police records of the Guomindang Government on these episodes with an analysis of the contents of the prophecies and the motives of the worshippers. It shows that the worshippers harbored no political agenda but aspired to blessings from Liu Bowen for a healthy and happy life. The final part of the paper gives a textual analysis of the Liu Bowen chen or Liu Bowen jiujiebei wen propagated by sectarian organizations in Taiwan with similar non-violent social goals.… [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan is a revisionist power. Its independence movement challenges a vital status-quo interest of mainland China's opposition to a dejure Taiwan declaration of independence and maintaining, however ambiguously, Taiwan's commitment to the ‘one-China’ formulation. Why is it that a small and vulnerable island off the coast of a great power has continued to challenge the vital interest of that great power and risk war? Adopting a ‘levels of analysis’ approach to Taiwan's mainland policy, this paper addresses this question by examining four prevalent explanations for Taiwan's revisionist diplomacy: (1) the mainland deterrent is ineffective, reflecting Taiwan doubts about either mainland capabilities or mainland resolve to wage a retaliatory war; (2) in an example of the security dilemma in alliance politics, US commitment to Taiwan, although aimed at deterring PRC use of force, encourages Taiwan to challenge the status quo because the Taiwan leadership is confident of US intervention and US ability to defend Taiwan; (3) because of the development of a ‘Taiwan identity’ and of corresponding domestic political pressures, the Democratic Progressive Party has been compelled to adopt a pro-independence policy; (4) Chen Shui-bian has a personal commitment to Taiwan independence and has been willing to challenge the mainland's interest in one-China, despite risk of heightened conflict and regardless of domestic political considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of Taiwanese party politics reached a milestone in the 2000 presidential and 2001 legislative elections. The island's pre-existing three-party system underwent a marked reconfiguration. With the split of the Kuomintang (KMT), two new parties emerged but one existing party nearly collapsed. Party politics in Taiwan have shown a continuous process of proliferation of new parties. This paper analyzes the underlying logic that drives the reconfiguration of the Taiwanese party system. A political-institution perspective is employed to show how social cleavages, mixed electoral incentives, and government formation work in dictating the transformation of the party system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the study of Taiwan politics in the field of public administration, focusing on the concurrence of two reforms: democratization and new public management (NPM). The most vehement criticism against NPM has been voiced by the advocates of substantial democracy. They believe that, by encouraging individuals to pursue maximized self-interest, this efficiency-oriented movement only serves to attenuate the moral dimensions of democratic life, leaving underdeveloped such values as social justice, equality, social solidarity, and public-spirited participation. Such an observation leads to the following intellectual curiosity: what would happen if one country were to go through both democratization and NPM simultaneously, as is the case with many countries today? In an attempt to answer this question and to illustrate the dynamics between these two reforms, this paper examines Taiwan's history of administrative development. The findings challenge the common understanding that these two reforms are mutually incompatible. The main argument is that there is in fact a synergic interaction between the reforms during their initial phase. Because the NPM reforms actually advocate certain core values also shared by liberal democracies, and because NPM measures help fulfill certain political functions for regime transition, the two reforms actually reinforce each other early on in the process. Nevertheless, as democratization proceeds, such advanced goals as improving the quality of civil society and promoting grass-roots deliberation with regard to a collective future begin to be emphasized on the reform agenda. NPM at this later stage is found to impose challenges to further democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan has long had a reputation for effective policy-making based on a highly skilled and educated bureaucracy. In addition, this capacity for technocratic leadership has not resulted in a huge, inefficient bureaucracy since the size of government remains comparatively small. This paper explores the implications of Taiwan's recent democratization for the effectiveness of the country's public administration. On the one hand, democratization reduced the power of regime conservatives, thereby expanding the role of technocrats in the government; on the other burgeoning corruption and policy gridlock have clearly undercut effective policy-making. Thus, the most fundamental challenge for public administration in Taiwan appears to be re-establishing the bureaucratic integrity of technocratic government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan (the Republic of China, ROC) adopted a semi-presidential system in the 1997 constitutional reform. That system is now being put to the test through the transfer of power from the Kuomintang (KMT) to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) given that the DPP won the 2000 presidential elections. This paper first develops a theoretical framework to analyze political stability under different types of semi-presidential systems. Three factors are singled out as the most critical: presidential power (high or low), president-parliament relations (congruent or incongruent), and party system (biparty or multiparty). Following is a look into Taiwan's institutional background and its process of constitutional reform. We discover that after the inauguration of President Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan fell into a highly unfavorable situation, with a low stability rating. The second part of the paper focuses on the interaction mode between the president and the parliament which is characterized by incongruent relations. Four empirical cases are used to demonstrate the four interaction modes under incongruence: the French Fifth Republic ("cohabitation"), Finland ("division of labor"), Weimar Germany ("collision"), and the Russian Federation ("supremacy of the president'). The Chen (Shui-bian)-Tang (Fei) duarchy is closer to the Finnish "division of labor "system than to any other interaction mode, but with less presidential concessions. This setup is clearly a compromise rather than cohabitation. As such, the Chen-Tang system is useful in defusing parliamentary opposition in the short term, but is conflict-prone in nature, as born out by its ultimate collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The PRC-Taiwan diplomatic rivalry has not spared the South Pacific islands, a region only rarely mentioned within a Western strategy for Asia. This paper argues that the PRC and Taiwan have, since the 1970s, become players in their own right in Oceania, raising new variables in an uneventful area. Beijing and Taipei have made energetic efforts out of all proportion to draw such tiny islands to either camp. The elusive reasons are dissected herein. Wary of Western hegemony, the region's leaders have turned to Asia for offers of trade and aid, and have played the PRC and Taiwan against each other. This paper seeks to: explain Beijing's and Taipei's goals in lands that yield seemingly negligible gains; show how such activism has impacted Oceania; determine the region's perceptions and reactions; portray the relative position of all players; and point out future problems. The study is divided into contentious points crystallized over time: Cold War decolonization and the Chinese/Taiwanese arrival; aid, trade, and investment; fishing disputes; the role of China's navy; the region's nuclear-free zone; UN and South Pacific Forum dialogues; and the region's social economic, environmental ethnic, and security concerns. The study concludes that the supremacy of Chinese and Taiwanese global commercial considerations aims to demand a specific institutional-geopolitical alignment in Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the Republic of China (ROC) uses economic-related techniques to achieve its foreign policy goals as well as factors that affect the ROC's efforts. The paper's central contention is that the effectiveness of economic diplomacy depends not only on wealth but also on the global environment and the capacity of the Taipei government to negotiate and compromise. In the future, as the ROC's economic leverage decreases and the PRC's sensitivity increases, the Taipei government will need all the statesmanship and leadership at its disposal if it is to employ its economic diplomacy effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]