{"title":"An Interpretavist and Constructivist Understanding of Democracy and Democratization","authors":"H. Im","doi":"10.29654/TJD.200507.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200507.0010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131377439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Democracy Challenged: Latin America in the Twenty-First Century","authors":"R. Chávez","doi":"10.29654/TJD.200507.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200507.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Electoral democracy has shown remarkable resilience in Latin America, but the quality and depth of democracy in the region remain at risk. The real threat to democratic government in Latin America is not a reverse wave that would return the region to military rule, but rather the gradual erosion of democratic institutions. The myopic focus on elections is partly to blame for the fragility of Latin America’s democratic scaffolding. Competitive elections have masked the fact that other essential components of democracy have not taken root. Like the narrow focus on elections, the perception of Latin America as a monolithic entity has impeded a careful review of democracy in the region. The quality of democracy varies greatly across Latin America. The variation in the position of Latin American democracies along the democratic spectrum reflects the fact that the countries of the region face different challenges. The range of obstacles to democratic consolidation includes a weak rule of law, discredited political party systems, persistent inequality and poverty, social exclusion, and mounting violence and crime. To ensure that citizen dissatisfaction does not undermine the legitimacy of democratic government, policymakers must address these challenges.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"96 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124193395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Globalization, Democracy, and the Evolution of Social Contracts in East Asia","authors":"Stephan Haggard","doi":"10.29654/TJD.200507.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200507.0002","url":null,"abstract":"A large literature on the East Asian welfare state has noted that government commitments to social insurance have historically been limited. However, this literature is backward-looking. Democratization has been accompanied by an expansion of social policy commitments in a number of countries in the region; this expansion even survived the Asian financial crisis. But closer inspection suggests that this experience depends on economic as well as political circumstances. High growth and structurally sound public finances underpinned social policy expansion in Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan, while erratic growth and structural fiscal problems limited the capacity of democratic governments in the Philippines to respond to long-standing social problems.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131407262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Democratization in the Middle East","authors":"J. Bill","doi":"10.29654/TJD.200507.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200507.0008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128524454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Transition without Justice, or Justice without History: Transitional Justice in Taiwan","authors":"Naiteh Wu","doi":"10.29654/TJD.200507.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200507.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Depending on their particular historical-political situations, new democratic regimes have adopted different strategies to tackle the problems of transitional justice, such as how to deal with the perpetrators of the former regime, how to compensate victims, and how to rectify the history of that traumatic past. This essay discusses how Taiwan's unique approach to the problems-reparations for victims but not holding anyone accountable, much less prosecuting the perpetrators-has been affected by the mode of democratic transition, the ethnic situation, ”the moment of repression,” and other factors. Moreover, in Taiwan, the historical records of atrocities received little attention. Contending that the historical memory of the authoritarian past has an important role to play in the civic education for a democratic citizenry, this essay also calls for rendering truth to history, but in a way that can bridge the ethnic divisions in the historical memory.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131323219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Freezing the Flow: Theorizing about Democratization in a World in Flux","authors":"L. Whitehead","doi":"10.29654/TJD.200507.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200507.0001","url":null,"abstract":"International factors and the channels through which they operate are two key themes in the dialogue between theory and experience of democratization. Recent developments in Afghanistan and Iraq highlight how much is at stake and how provisional the academic consensus remains. The ”state-ness” as an empirical foundation for comparative theorizing about democratization proved to be inadequate. The apparently neat and clear-cut distinction between ”national” and ”international” factors may work when applied to the most prominent individual case histories of transition but is harder to sustain for more marginal cases, and liable to dissolve when working with comparative models. While analytical clarity requires the development of no more than a few, well demarcated alternative models, the empirical record continues to generate unexpected new patterns, borderline cases, and experiences straddle more than one model. An inductive taxonomy based on a small number of recurrent-primarily international-variables can provisionally order this potential confusion, but periodic revision is essential, given new developments.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122179451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Appointing the Prime Minister under Incongruence: Taiwan in Comparison with France and Russia","authors":"Yu-Shan Wu","doi":"10.29654/TJD.200507.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200507.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This article attempts to answer the question of why ROC President Chen Shui-bian has not appointed an opposition leader to be prime minister although the opposition has maintained a majority in the Legislative Yuan. This question is raised because the 1997 amendment of the ROC constitution is modeled on the French Fifth Republic, and a French president under similar circumstances would opt for ”cohabitation.” A typology of the modes of interactions between the president and the parliament under an incongruent semipresidential system is offered in which four modes are identified: ”cohabitation” a la French Fifth Republic, ”compromise” or ”division of labor,” as in Finland or Poland, ”collision,” as exemplified by Weimar Germany, and ”presidential supremacy,” as practiced in the Russian Federation. Taiwan since Chen's inauguration in May 2000 has been moving closer and closer to the ideal type of ”presidential supremacy,” as evidenced by the increasing assertion of Chen in appointing four consecutive prime ministers, and the corresponding acquiescence by the opposition-dominated parliament. This presidential ascendancy is attributed to low credibility of a successful vote of no confidence (SVNC) on Chen's prime ministers. That low credibility, in turn, is attributed to dismal electoral prospects and the lack of a will to fight of the opposition leadership, and high coordination hurdles for the opposition parties. It is asserted that the future mode of president-parliament interaction in Taiwan would still be determined by those factors bearing on the credibility of an SVNC, given that the ROC's constitutional structure remains semipresidential.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"90 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115102087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Direct Democracy Upside Down","authors":"U. Serdült, Yanina Welp","doi":"10.5167/UZH-98412","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5167/UZH-98412","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last decades, provisions for direct democracy mechanisms increasingly have been added to new constitutions and more questions have been decided by referendum votes around the world in consolidated, new, or reestablished democracies. These mechanisms are usually classified according to who initiated the call: mandatory referendum (by law), referendum by legislatures and office holders (top-down), or citizen referendum and initiative (bottom-up). While the first and the second types have been studied in a comparative approach, the third remains an issue for case studies mainly (e.g., Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Italy). However, despite incomplete research, bottom-up direct democracy is seen as a way for citizenry to exercise veto power (refusing laws or constitutional amendments) or to innovate (propose bills). This essay challenges this common assumption by analyzing all the experiences of bottom-up direct democracy at the national level worldwide (1874-2009). It is suggested that even so-called bottom-up referendums could be used (a) to concentrate power, (b) to serve as a partisan strategy, and, rather exceptionally, (c) to empower citizens and civil society. While the first type shows a similar pattern to top-down direct democracy in hybrid regimes or nonconsolidated democracies, and the second type works as a political party’s strategy to increase membership and votes, only the last type could reinvigorate democracy, although to what extent this is happening needs further research.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"111 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124714386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Constructing Democracy the State of the Art","authors":"Joseph L. Klesner","doi":"10.29654/TJD.200801.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200801.0009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122164883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Managing Diversity through Institutional Design","authors":"N. Jorgensen","doi":"10.29654/TJD.200801.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.200801.0011","url":null,"abstract":"The idea that political institutions can be deliberately shaped or “engineered” in order to achieve desired political outcomes is hardly new-the authors of the Constitution of the United States, for example, vigorously debated various configurations of rules, constraints, and incentives that might simultaneously disperse political power over a wide range of actors, while at the same time providing sufficient resources to the central government to provide for national defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure domestic tranquility. Engineering, a theory-driven or deductively-based process, assumes that political institutions can be designed a priori and set in place in order to achieve a particular set of desiderata: representation, fairness, stability, or prosperity, to name but a few. The ability of governments to achieve those and other goals is in part a function of the rule structures that shape and are shaped by political action. Institutional performance is particularly critical to democratic governments, since those rules and constraints mediate between the preferences and aspirations of the electorate, on the one hand, and candidates and governments, on the other. Benjamin Reilly’s latest book, Democracy and Diversity: Political Engineering in the Asia-Pacific, is a welcome addition to the small but growing body of literature that applies what has been learned about political engineering in other regional and historical contexts (e.g., Western Europe during the era of mass enfranchisement and rapid industrialization, and Eastern and Central Europe during the breakup of the Soviet bloc) to a region that has seen too little attention paid to actual rules and conduct of political action. Much of the literature on the politics of the region has either focused on structural or cultural variables or has been confined to single-country monographs that have given short shrift to comparative analysis. Furthermore, the comparative democratization literature has so far paid less attention to the Asia-Pacific region than it has to the more extensively studied regions of Eastern and","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127067962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}