On October 17-18, 2014 the Taiwan Democracy Project at CDDRL, with the generous support of the Taipei Economic and Culture Office, hosted its annual conference at Stanford University to examine the politics of polarization in Taiwan.
This conference brought together specialists from Taiwan, the U.S., and elsewhere in Asia to examine the sources and implications of this political polarization in comparative perspective. It will include a special case study of the Trade in Services Agreement with China that triggered this past year’s protests, as well as a more general overview of the politics of trade liberalization in Taiwan, prospects for Taiwan’s integration into the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other regional trade agreements, and a consideration of the implications for Taiwan’s long-term democratic future.
Ping-yin Kuan (關秉寅) is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at National Chengchi University, Taiwan, where he also holds a joint appointment in the International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies. His research focuses on using panel data to investigate the impact of family and school environments on adolescents’ educational outcomes. He is currently the principal investigator of the Taiwan Education Panel Study and Beyond, a longitudinal study that follows about 60,000 young people since their high school years in 2001. He holds a B.A. from Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan, an M.S. from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, all in sociology.