The Virtual Wrecking Crew: How Digital Convergence Is Undermining the Communications Regulatory Regime in Taiwan.

At the start of 2006, Taiwan is taking the boldest step ever in its history of communications regulations with the creation of the National Communications Commission, an independent regulatory agency expected to streamline the regulatory structure and usher in the era of digital convergence. The Commission, however, is off to a crashing start. The statute that establishes the NCC and defines its functions is poorly conceived and political parties have been pointing fingers at one another for stalling the nomination process of commissioners. The starting stumble of the NCC, nevertheless, is merely the symptom. Lying beneath all the political bickering are serious clashes between different regulatory cultures that are now crossing paths due to digital convergence. In the spirit of law and society tradition, this paper will examine the social forces that have been sabotaging communications regulatory reforms and explain why they will eventually be tamed, not by the new Commission, but by a new architecture brought about by inevitable social and technological changes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]