Stanford University

Liberal Taiwan versus Illiberal South Korea: The Divergent Paths of Electoral Campaign Regulation

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Abstract:

Both South Korea and Taiwan are considered consolidated democracies, but the two countries have developed very different sets of electoral campaign regulations. While both countries had highly restrictive election laws during their authoritarian eras, they have diverged after democratic transition. South Korea still restricts campaigning activities, including banning door-to-door canvassing, prohibiting pre-official period campaigning, and restricting the quantity and content of literature. Taiwan has removed most campaigning restrictions, except for finance regulations. This study explores the causes of these divergent trajectories through comparative historical process tracing, using both archival and secondary sources. The preliminary findings suggest that the incumbency advantage and the containment of the leftist or opposition parties were the primary causes of regulation under the soft and hard authoritarian regimes of South Korea and Taiwan. The key difference was that the main opposition party as well as the ruling party in South Korea enjoyed the incumbency advantage but that opposition forces in Taiwan did not. As a result, the opposition in Taiwan fought for liberalization of campaign regulations, but that in South Korea did not. Democratization in Taiwan was accompanied by successive liberalizations in campaign regulation, but in South Korea the incumbent legislators affiliated with the ruling and opposition parties were both interested in limiting campaigning opportunities for electoral challengers.

 

Bio:

Dr. Jong-sung You is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. His research interests include comparative politics and the political economy of inequality, corruption, social trust, and freedom of expression. He conducts both cross-national quantitative studies and qualitative case studies, focusing on Korea and East Asia. He recently published a book entitled Democracy, Inequality and Corruption: Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines Compared with Cambridge University Press. His publications have appeared at American Sociological Review, Political Psychology, Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Perspective, Trends and Prospects, and Korean Journal of International Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and taught at UC San Diego. Before pursuing an academic career, he fought for democracy and social justice in South Korea.

 

 

Jong-sung You Senior Lecturer College of Asia and the Pacific, Australia National University
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The Sunflower Movement and the Future of Taiwan's Political Culture

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Abstract 
Based on first-hand participant-observation, this talk will examine the culture, politics, and spatiality of the Sunflower Movement. Taiwan's most significant social movement in decades, the Sunflower Movement not only blocked the passage of a major trade deal with China, but reshaped popular discourse and redirected Taiwan's political and cultural trajectory. It re-energized student and civil society, precipitated the historic defeat of the KMT in the 2014 local elections, and prefigured the DPP's strong position coming into the 2016 presidential and legislative election season.
 
The primary spatial tactic of the Sunflowers-- occupation of a government building-- was so successful that a series of protests in the summer of 2015 by high school students was partly conceived and represented as a "second Sunflower Movement". These students, protesting "China-centric" curriculum changes, attempted to occupy the Ministry of Education building. Thwarted by police, these students settled for the front courtyard, where a Sunflower-style pattern of encampments and performances emerged. While this movement did not galvanize the wider public as dramatically as its predecessor, it did demonstrate the staying power of the Sunflower Movement and its occupation tactics for an even younger cohort of activists.
 
The Sunflower Movement showed that contingent, street-level, grassroots action can have a major impact on Taiwan's cross-Strait policies, and inspired and trained a new generation of youth activists. But with the likely 2016 presidential win of the DPP, which has attempted to draw support from student activists while presenting a less radical vision to mainstream voters, what's in store for the future of Taiwanese student and civic activism? And with strong evidence of growing Taiwanese national identification and pro-independence sentiment, particularly among youth, what's in store for the future of Taiwan's political culture? 
 

Speaker Bio

Ian Rowen in Legislative Yuan Ian Rowen in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan during the Sunflower Student Movement protest.

Ian Rowen is PhD Candidate in Geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and recent Visiting Fellow at the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan, Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, and Fudan University. He participated in both the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements and has written about them for The Journal of Asian Studies, The Guardian, and The BBC (Chinese), among other outlets. He has also published about Asian politics and protest in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (forthcoming) and the Annals of Tourism Research. His PhD research, funded by the US National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Program, and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, has focused on the political geography of tourism and protest in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. 

 

Presentation Slides

Ian Rowen Doctoral Candidate University of Colorado Dept of Geography
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The Possible Approaches for Defusing Tensions in the South China Sea: A Taiwanese Perspective

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In this talk, Wellington Shih will provide a historical and legal overview of the Republic of China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. He will also review the latest developments in the ongoing dispute between the People’s Republic of China, the ROC on Taiwan, and other claimants in the region, including the Philippines, and discuss the South China Sea Peace Initiative proposed by the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou. 

The Possible Approaches for Defusing Tensions in the South China Sea: A Taiwanese Perspective
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Visiting scholar Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan)
Lectures

President Ma delivers talk on Taiwan-US relations via videoconference

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On Tuesday, June 2, 2015, CDDRL's Taiwan Democracy Project welcomed President Ma Ying-jeou of the Republic of China (Taiwan) as he addressed a crowd of over 200 in a talk commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the long history of the U.S.-R.O.C. relationship. The speech was accompanied by a panel Q&A discussion with Lanhee J. Chen, former chief policy advisor to U.S. Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney; Karl Eikenberry, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan; and Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council. The event was moderated by William J. Perry, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and former U.S. Secretary of Defense. 

This special event was co-sponsored by CDDRL's Taiwan Democracy Project; the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, San Francisco; and the Office of the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
 

Click here to view photos from the event via our Facebook Album: http://on.fb.me/1QxpzQp

See below for press coverage of the event:

June 3, 2015

"Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou Holds Teleconference on 70th Anniversary of Second World War Victory"

Pacific News Center

"President Ma talks history in video conference"

Focus Taiwan News Channel

"Ma marks sacrifices of ROC armed forces during WWII"

Taiwan Today

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Special Event: Videoconference with President Ma Ying-jeou of the Republic of China (Taiwan)

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**LIVE WEBCAST WILL BE AVAILABLE HERE IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO THE EVENT.**

 

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On June 2, 2015, the Taiwan Democracy Project at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) will host a special panel session featuring the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Ma Ying-jeou. President Ma will speak via live video feed to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the long history of the U.S.-R.O.C. relationship. Following his prepared remarks, the president will engage in a question-and-answer session with the audience and a distinguished panel of leading Stanford faculty and fellows, chaired and moderated by the former Secretary of Defense of the United States, William J. Perry.

 

About the Speaker

Ma Ying-jeou has served as the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) since May 2008. As president, Ma Ying-jeou has worked to address the repercussions of the global financial crisis, stepping up efforts to bring about a more diversified industrial structure and to jump-start new engines for economic growth in Taiwan. President Ma has also attached great importance to promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction, which has helped Taiwan’s energy efficiency to exceed two percent. In addition, his administration worked to craft a response to regional economic integration, successfully negotiating the landmark Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with the People's Republic of China in 2010. President Ma's creative diplomacy has brought a significant improvement in cross-Strait relations while putting an end to a long and vituperative standoff between the two sides in the diplomatic sphere.

 

About the Panelists

William J. Perry is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus) and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Hoover Institution, and serves as the director of the Preventive Defense Project at Stanford University. He was the Secretary of Defense for the United States from 1994-1997.

 

Lanhee J. Chen is the David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, as well as Lecturer in Public Policy and Law at Stanford University. He served as the chief policy adviser to 2012 U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

 

Karl Eikenberry is the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.  He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and is a Lieutenant General, Retired, U.S. Army.

 

Thomas Fingar is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and as chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2005-2008.

 

 

Event Details

The live panel will take place in the Bechtel Conference Room of the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, at 616 Serra Street, from 5:45-7:00pm on June 2, 2015. An informal reception in the lobby of Encina Hall will follow.

 

This event is co-sponsored with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, San Francisco and the Office of the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It is free and open to the public. RSVP is required.

 

 

President Ma Ying-jeou
Lanhee J. Chen
Thomas Fingar
William J. Perry
Panel Discussions

Why Taiwan's Defense Spending Has Fallen as China's Has Risen

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ABSTRACT

Over the past 20 years, the military balance between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan has rapidly shifted. As China’s defense budget has grown annually at double-digit rates, Taiwan’s has shrunk. These trends are puzzling, because China’s rise as a military power poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s security. Existing theories suggest that states will choose one of three strategies when faced with an external threat: bargaining, arming, or allying. Yet for most of this period, Taiwan’s leaders have done none of these things. In this talk, I explain this apparent paradox as a consequence of Taiwan’s transition to democracy. Democracy has worked in three distinct ways to constrain rises in defense spending: by intensifying popular demands for non-defense spending, introducing additional veto players into the political system, and increasing the incentives of political elites to shift Taiwan’s security burden onto its primary ally, the United States. Together, these domestic political factors have driven a net decline in defense spending despite the rising threat posed by China’s rapid military modernization program. Put simply, in Taiwan the democratization effect has swamped the external threat effect. 

 

SPEAKER BIO

Kharis Templeman is the Program Manager for the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, in the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University.

 

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Why Taiwan's Defense Spending Has Fallen
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Seminars

Democracy studies journal reviews “New Challenges”

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Writing for Democratization, Kyong Jun Choi at the University of Washington reviewed New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (Stanford University Press, 2014), a co-edited book by Stanford professors Larry Diamond and Gi-Wook Shin.

“Among the most notable strengths of this volume is its analysis of new phenomena that have rarely been addressed in existing literature,” Choi writes.

The book seeks to illustrate different characteristics of the evolution of democracy in Taiwan and South Korea. The two countries share similar economic and political directions since industrialization took place in the 1960s and transition toward democracy began in the 1980s.

Choi says that the book “certainly stands as a stepping stone for research on new democracies struggling to consolidate democracy.”

“New Challenges” is one outcome of a multiyear research project at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and a conference co-hosted with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law in 2011.

The review is featured in Democratization’s vol. 21, issue 7. Information about accessing the review can found by clicking here.

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Demonstrators in Seoul commemorate the historic June 10 mass pro-democracy movement of 1987.
Reuters/Jo Yong-Hak
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The End(s) of Compassion? Buddhist Charity and the State in Taiwan

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ABSTRACT

The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi (Ciji) Foundation from Taiwan is perhaps one of the largest Buddhist charities in the Chinese world today. This talk traces how Tzu Chi developed under the “regime of civility” in Taiwan. The same regime also contributed to the recent controversies between Tzu Chi and the Aborigines. I argue that the tension between the Buddhist non-governmental organization and the Christian Aborigines has to do with the inequality under the regime of civility: on the one hand, the Aborigines have been marginalized as the “subject” of the civility campaign by the state; and, on the other hand, the same regime of civility is what allows the Buddhist charity to thrive in civil society. This talk raises the question whether civility could turn against civil society.

SPEAKER BIO

huang julia

C. Julia Huang is a Professor of Anthropology at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, and currently a Visiting Scholar at the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University. Huang has published articles in the Journal of Asian Studies, Ethnology, Positions, Nova Religio, the Eastern Buddhist, and the European Journal for East Asian Studies. Her book, Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement (Harvard University Press, 2009) is an ethnography of a lay Buddhist movement that began as a tiny group in Taiwan and grew into an organization with ten million members worldwide. Huang has recently completed a book manuscript, The Social Life of Goodness: Religious Philanthropy in Chinese Societies (with Robert P. Weller and Keping Wu). She is currently working on a project on the Buddhist influences on cadaver donations for medical education in Taiwan.

 

This event is part of the Taiwan Democracy Project.

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Ends of Compassion--presentation
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C. Julia Huang Professor of Anthropology National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
Seminars

Electoral Politics and Cross-Strait Relations

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Abstract

Cross-Strait relations play an important role in electoral politics in Taiwan. Increasing economic exchange together with warming political engagements make today’s cross-Strait relations a very unique case in the study of public opinion in Taiwan. Because of the economic prosperity of China, people in Taiwan might consider the expansion of trade and other forms of cross-Strait exchanges beneficial to the prosperity of Taiwan. However, growing trade ties also mean that Taiwan’s economic reliance on the mainland increases day by day, and it could eventually result in political unification—an outcome that the majority of people in Taiwan do not want. The long-standing antagonism across the Strait, especially visible in their different governing systems and ideological attitudes, has produced something close to two separate countries and contrasting national identities.  Dr. Chen was former Director of Election Study Center of National Chengchi University in Taiwan, and he will present long-term polling tracks to demonstrate how cross-Strait relations have affected electoral politics in Taiwan.

 

Bio

Lu-huei Chen is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Election Study Center and Professor of Political Science at National Chengchi University in Taiwan.  He is currently a visiting scholar of Top University Strategic Alliance (TUSA) at MIT. Professor Chen received his Ph. D. in political science from Michigan State University. His research focuses on political behavior, political socialization, research methods, and cross-Strait relations.  He has published articles in Issues and Studies, Journal of Electoral Studies (in Chinese), Social Science Quarterly, and Taiwan Political Science Review (in Chinese). He is the editor of Continuity and Change in Taiwan's 2012 Presidential and Legislative Election (in Chinese, 2013), Public Opinion Polls (in Chinese, 2013), and co-edited The 2008 Presidential Election: A Critical Election on Second Turnover (in Chinese, with Chi Huang and Ching-hsin Yu, 2009).

Electoral Politics and Cross-Strait Relations
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Lu-huei "Jack" Chen Professor of Political Science National Cheng Chi University, Taiwan
Seminars

Pathways to Democracy: Taiwan's Lessons for China

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Abstract:

Authoritarian ruling parties are expected to resist democratization, often times at all costs. And yet some of the strongest authoritarian parties in the world have not resisted democratization, but have instead embraced it. This is because their raison d’etre is to continue ruling, though not necessarily to remain authoritarian. Put another way, democratization requires ruling parties hold free and fair elections, but not that they lose them. Authoritarian ruling parties can thus be incentivized to concede democratization from a position of exceptional strength. This alternative pathway to democracy is illustrated with Asian cases – notably Taiwan – in which ruling parties democratized from positions of considerable strength, and not weakness. The conceding-to-thrive argument has clear implications with respect to “candidate cases” in developmental Asia, where ruling parties have not yet conceded democratization despite being well-positioned to thrive were they to do so, such as the world’s most populous dictatorship, China.

 

Bio:

Joseph Wong is the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, and Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Democratization, Health and Development. Professor Wong was the Director of the Asian Institute at the Munk School from 2005 to 2014. In addition to academic articles and book chapters, Professor Wong has published four books: Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea (2004) and Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of Asia’s Developmental State (2011), both published by Cornell University Press, as well as Political Transitions in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose, co-edited with Edward Friedman (Routledge, 2008), and Innovating for the Global South: Towards a New Innovation Agenda, co-edited with Dilip Soman and Janice Stein (University of Toronto Press, 2014). He is currently working on a book monograph with Dan Slater (University of Chicago) on Asia’s development and democracy, which is currently under contract with Princeton University Press. Professor Wong earned his Hons. B.A from McGill University (1995) and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001). 

Philippines Conference Room, 3rd Floor, Encina Hall

616 Serra St., Stanford, CA

Joe Wong Professor and Canada Research Chair in Political Science University of Toronto
Seminars
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