Recently, there has been a rising interest in institutionalism in political studies. Institutionalism appears as both empirical theories of politics and normative theories of social justice. This paper examines David Miller’s institutional theory of social justice, its characteristics and theoretical consistency. Miller’s theory takes manifold institutions seriously and its aim is to prescribe...
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Volume #9, Number #1
Volume #9, Number #1
This paper investigates the relationship between political party cooperation and Duverger’s Law. A theoretical model is build in order to demonstrate whether two party leaders would cooperate or not and therefore nominate only one candidate to campaign. The results shed light on how Duverger’s law is satisfied through pre-election coordination between political parties. Under three...
Volume #9, Number #1
This paper based on A. Downs’ Median Voter Theorem, explores Chen Shui-Bian’s Third-way policy in unification-independence issue during the 2000 presidential election. The character of the empirical framework, based on the probability voter model proposed by Adams and Merrill (1999), is to incorporate both policies’ proximal and directional effects and to integrate the non-policy influence...
Volume #9, Number #1
This article is to review and evaluate the “enhanced productivity programme” that was implemented in the Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government from 1998 to 2003. This is an epitome of application of the Anglo-American New Public Management reform to Hong Kong. The author attempts to critically probe the implications of the programme, indicating that the policy goals of the...
Volume #8, Number #2
The paper tries to explore the plausible types of a divided government which has a predominant opposition party in the legislature, and the influences of these divided types may exercise upon their legislature and executive relations. The main reasons for doing so are, on the one hand, Taiwan’s county governments so far have had a very unbalanced seat share between their ruling and opposition...
Volume #8, Number #2
This research project focuses on the formation of administrative elites within the DPP after the political power turnover in 2000. Through the analysis of the administrative elites’ background, and their entry and mobility between sectors, the features of this administrative group can be specified. Personnel data of DDP administrative elites was collected for the 2000-2003 period. These data...
Volume #8, Number #2
Germany’s Constitution of 1911 provided referendums on federal, state and local level. The constitution of the Weimar Republic allowed the people to hold a referendum on issues. After World War II, Germany has no provision for popular participation through referendum at federal level. By 1990 only seven states had referendums at state level and only one state had direct democracy at local...
Volume #8, Number #2
For over two thousand years, the coup of annihilating Empress Lü’s families (諸呂) that occurred in the 23th year of the Western Han Empire (180 B. C.) had been widely misunderstood. Empress Lü’s (呂后) descendants were thought to be guilty and justly executed, because they intended to commit the crime of treason. This view has been challenged by contemporary scholars who reached the consensus...
Volume #8, Number #2
Some recent studies have found little explanatory power of religious attachment to the attitude toward democracy or war in the Muslim societies. This result challenges the conventional wisdom that the religious factor is deeply connected to political turmoil in the Middle East. However, political scientists so far lack a powerful theory to explain the support of political Islam. The purpose of...
Volume #8, Number #1
The study of the causes of voter’s split-ticket voting has gained its prominence following the increasingly emergence of divided governments in America. These literatures are having merits both in quality and quantity. This article firstly reviews the competing perspectives for the causes of voter's split-ticket voting. It also addresses the issue of cross-national applications of these...