Trends and Prospects in Taiwan's Party Politics: Implications of the Recent Special Municipality Elections

Monday, December 6, 2010
12:15 PM - 1:30 PM
(Pacific)
Philippines Conference Room
Speaker: 
  • Yun-han Chu

Taiwan’s special municipality elections have been viewed by many as the “mid-term” for the Ma Ying-jeou presidency, bearing important political significance for the 2012 presidential election. In this special seminar, Professor Yun-han Chu, one of the leading political scientists in Taiwan and also President of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, will analyze the recent special municipality elections and their implications for Taiwan’s future political trends. Professor Chu will provide firsthand information about these recent election campaigns and what they reveal about the state of democracy in Taiwan. In analyzing the election results, he will also shed light on how the race for the presidency in 2012 is shaping up.

Yun-han Chu is Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica and Professor of Political Science at National Taiwan University. He serves concurrently as president of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. Professor Chu received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Minnesota and joined the faculty of National Taiwan University in 1987. He specializes in politics of Greater China, East Asian political economy and democratization. He is a three-time recipient of the Outstanding Research Award from Taiwan’s National Science Council. He currently serves on the editorial board of International Studies Quarterly, Pacific Affairs, China Review, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of East Asian Studies and Journal of Democracy. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of eleven books. Among his recent English publications are Crafting Democracy in Taiwan (Institute for National Policy Research, 1992), Consolidating Third-Wave Democracies (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), China Under Jiang Zemin (Lynne Reinner, 2000), and The New Chinese Leadership (Cambridge University Press, 2004). His works have also appeared in some leading journals including World Politics, International Organization, China Quarterly, Journal of Democracy, and Asian Survey.