This paper aims to examine the Tseng-Wen Reservoir Trans-basin Water Diversion Project from the perspective of environmental justice, and to explore the disputes on the distribution of interests and environmental risks of the project, and the policy implications of local action. It reveals the multiple perspectives of stakeholders on the project, the various knowledge claims among experts of...
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Volume #16, Number #2
Volume #16, Number #2
The passage of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1965 did not help Hong Kong to protect its citizens from discrimination at all, although Hong Kong has been a member of the convention since 1969. The H.K government had done nothing to deal with its racial discrimination problem for decades, either under Britain’s rule or China’s rule....
Volume #16, Number #2
It is commonly seen that the citizens’ preferences regarding the issue of “unification vs. independence” are determined by a six-itemed measurement placing unification and independence as the two ends of a one-dimensional continuum and four other related items in between. The citizens are directly asked to pick out one of the six items. This method has an advantage of being easily understood...
Volume #16, Number #1
One of the well-known debates in International Relations is between rationalism and constructivism, in which rationalism submits that the actions of states observe “the logic of consequentialism”while constructivism “the logic of appropriateness”. In recent years a branch of constructivism attempts to appropriate Habermas’s theory of communicative action and argues that the actions of states...
Volume #16, Number #1
Taiwan’s new MMM legislative electoral system first implemented in 2008 was a sharp departure from the half-century long SNTV system. This paper examines effects of knowledge of the new electoral system on citizens’ decisions to vote or not to vote. Existing literature on voting either assumes that voters are fully aware of the electoral system and thus ignores the effect of knowledge or at...
Volume #16, Number #1
In the trajectory of Taiwan’s democratization, the judicial system has long been entangled in the political conflict, and the general public does not seem to trust the judiciary to be independent of political influences. Some folk sayings about the courts reveal the negative stereotypes of vote-buying verdicts; for example, “the courts are dominated by the Kuomintang;” “at the first trial a...
Volume #16, Number #1
Existing legislative theories, which are developed to explain legislative dynamics in the U.S. Congress, presumes the existence of a majority party in a legislature and fails to provide predictions about positive agenda power of a majority under various degree of intra-party homogeneity and inter-party heterogeneity. Offering a theory of legislative majority coalition to explain its positive...
Volume #16, Number #1
This paper will point out that the rise of judicial politics is a new phenomenon in Taiwan. However, unlike law scholars who characterize Taiwan’s Constitutional Court justices as Taiwan’s top constitutional reformers, I will contend that the rise of judicial politics is attributable mostly to the judicial reform led by young judges and prosecutors from the bottom of the judicial hierarchy....
Volume #15, Number #2
China’s rapid economic growth has led to a dramatic increase in electricity demand. This is one of the reasons why hydropower is now playing a major role in China’s energy sector strategy, turning Yunnan Province with its huge hydropower reserves into a crucial power supplier for the country’s booming eastern and southern coastal regions. However, Yunnan does not only have important mineral...
Volume #15, Number #2
Indigenous hunting and its impact on wildlife represents one of the most critical and controversial issues in Taiwan. This study aims to investigate the interplay between governmental conservation institutions and indigenous hunting norms in an anonymous Truku area. The empirical results show that, over the long term between the 1970s and mid-2000s, socioeconomic change has played a pivotal...