As in Taiwan today, direct democratic institutions were also present during the Weimar Republic and enshrined in the Constitution. Similar to the founders of Taiwan’s constitution, the founders of the Weimar Constitution brought direct democratic elements into the Weimar Constitution mainly because they lacked confidence in the parliament and thought direct democratic elements could complement...
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Volume #24, Number #1
Volume #24, Number #1
From the perspective of political inclusiveness and accountability, how to ensure the adequate participation of women in public affairs and include their interests in the legislative process are important issues in contemporary democracies. Many countries have also tried to increase female representation in politics via various institutional arrangements. Under the global trend toward gender...
Volume #24, Number #1
The idea of crowdfunding has rapidly gained momentum around the world, as ordinary people have been looking for solutions to compensate for the diminishing interest rates on their investments in bonds and bank savings deposits as a result of the financial crisis in 2008-2009. The authorities have long remained inactive, but due to the rapid growth in popularity of crowdfunding, they have slowly...
Volume #24, Number #1
This research aims to investigate whether disaster response systems have the foundations needed to self-organize and overcome the uncertainties present in post-disaster environments. Drawing upon contributions from the resilience, network governance, and complex adaptive systems literature, this article presents the findings of an investigation into the disaster response system that operated...
Volume #23, Number #2
As a new but popular donor, China has taken on more responsibilities for development in poor countries, especially in Africa. However, due to the energy shortage and non-traditional aid policies in China, international society believes that such benevolent behavior is just a means of gaining easy access to oil resources in the region. By using a new dataset, AidData's Global Chinese Official...
Volume #23, Number #2
The concept of the Balance of Power theory in the international relations paradigms is full of theoretical defaults in terms of the concept's definition. The hegemonic transition in the international community exhibits the phenomenon of the failure of the Balance of Power mechanism. The power shifting arguments also constitute theoretical challenges of continuous failure to the Balance of...
Volume #23, Number #2
In 2015 three pieces of legislation were passed, which lays down a set of legal foundations for Taiwan's spatial planning. To shed light on the decision making of the relevant legislation, this article focuses on the congressional agenda setting, in which sponsoring and cosponsoring networks among legislators are analyzed to clarify the factors affecting legislators' behaviors and interactions...
Volume #23, Number #2
The concept of the Balance of Power theory in the international relations paradigms is full of theoretical defaults in terms of the concept's definition. The hegemonic transition in the international community exhibits the phenomenon of the failure of the Balance of Power mechanism. The power shifting arguments also constitute theoretical challenges of continuous failure to the Balance of...
Volume #23, Number #2
There are two approaches used to detect the people's political polarization in the literature. One is to locate people on the spectrum of ideology in order to calculate the distances among them regarding their positions on issues. The other is to measure the people's affective attitude towards parties. Regardless of which approach is adopted, the political polarization undoubtedly has both a...
Volume #23, Number #1
Japan has adopted the Political Funds Control Act and the Public Offices Election Act to promote the development of party politics since the GHQ period. In Japan, the distinctive characteristic of party politics has been the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party), which was in power for a long time. In the 1990s, in order to make up for the political deficiencies and resolve the problems of money/...