STATE REFORMATION AND THE FORMATION OF A NEWLY EMERGING WELFARE STATE IN TAIWAN

In postwar Taiwan, the legitimacy of the Kuomintang (KMT) regime had depended on the cold war structure and the civil war with the Communist Party. As the KMT regime penetrated Taiwanese society, it exercised tight control over the society through the medium of the strong party organization. However, in the process of democratization that started in the 1980s, the KMT's authoritarian political rule began to crumble, forcing the government to respond to people's demands in order to survive. The reform and improvement of the social security system in Taiwan were brought about against this backdrop of state reformation.     

浅论党的理论创新与执政伦理品格

一个政党能取得执掌政权的资格,除了必须掌握一定的执政资源以外,其执政伦理品格是一个至关重要的因素。本文从科学理性、价值定位和实践导向三个层面,分析党的创新理论及其实践所体现的党的执政伦理品格,对中国共产党作为执政党所具有的善政求新、勤政富民和实政立信执政伦理品格的时代内涵进行了较为具体的阐释。     

SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM BY THE CARDOSO GOVERNMENT OF BRAZIL: CHALLENGES AND LIMITATIONS OF REFORM TEN YEARS AFTER “DEMOCRATIZATION”

This article has two purposes. The first is to analyze politically why the Cardoso government's social security reform could not be completed. Though democratic political systems (election and political party systems) were reintroduced after the re‐democratization in 1985, Brazil continued to suffer from elements of its traditional political culture such as corporatism, clientelism, nepotism, etc. These were the stumbling blocks for Cardoso's reform. The second purpose is to deepen understanding of Brazilian democracy by casting light on the behavior of political actors (the government, congress, and political parties) over social security reform issues under the Cardoso and Lula governments.     

THE POLITICS OF REREGULATION: GLOBALIZATION,DEMOCRATIZATION, AND THE TAIWANESE LABOR MOVEMENT

Since the early 1990s, Taiwanese workers have faced two simultaneous trends: democratization and globalization. These two trends have different, if not exactly opposite, implications for the labor movement. Democratization has empowered the working class and made its members more effective in the political process. Globalization, however, has led to an increase in the flexibility of the labor market and made workers more vulnerable to changes in the economic environment. This paper begins with a discussion of the general characteristics of Taiwan's labor movement and the general impact of globalization on labor institutions. Then, by examining the transformation of Taiwan's labor institutions in recent years, and specifically the process of union reorganization and the revisions of the Labor Standards Law, the paper shows how, against the background of globalization, Taiwanese workers have used their newly acquired political power to maneuver between different political forces and set the development course for the labor movement.     

Information and communications technologies in the two Koreas: Contrasts,commonalities, challenges

The purpose of this study is to review the relationship of electoral system and democracy in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. The study looks at the transformation process of the electoral system in each country, and performs a comparative study on post‐democratization electoral reforms using the concepts of competitiveness and fairness. It is found that electoral systems displayed low levels of competitiveness and fairness before democratization, but that their reforms have led to an increase in competitiveness and an improvement in fairness in all three countries. Also, while the post‐democratization electoral reforms have facilitated the above‐mentioned democratic virtues, there have been significant country differences in the details of their progress. The Philippines promoted the competitiveness of the electoral system by adopting a party list system and guest candidate system. Although Thailand and Indonesia showed competitiveness in their electoral systems, they prohibited the participation of non‐partisan candidates in elections for the sake of stability of party politics. The differences are reflections of their particular political histories and contexts.     

整合执政资源与提高执政能力

执政资源是指执政党在领导国家经济、政治、文化和管理社会事务中所必需的各种积极因素和可调动利用的各种能量.整合执政资源是党的一个理论创新,它和党的执政能力是紧密联系的.执政资源是执政能力的基础,整合执政资源是提高执政能力的源泉.     

民主党派参政议政与党的整合能力的研究

现代国家政治是一种政党政治,政党制度往往与政治制度直接相关。我国的政党组织结构模式是中国共产党领导的多党合作制。而在当前民主党派在性质、作用等方面都发生了新变化。面对新形势,要正确处理"执政"与"参政"的关系,民主党派充分履行参政议政职能等问题,要求执政党必须对整合社会能力进行开拓创新。     

民主：政治资源配置的基本方式

民主应该是政治资源配置的基本方式,这是由民主的本质决定的,也反映了政治资源配置的根本要求;民主在配置政治资源中,其具体的有效实现形式如程序、样式、操作方法的科学性也是很值得考究的,不然就会使民主大打折扣;民主作为政治资源配置的基本方式不是抽象的,其具体的诉求渠道和表达样式是多维的,这种多维性要受到市场公平性、民族、国度、政党、阶级、历史、文化的制约,还要受到国际环境及信息通道的影响。     

Magnitude and volatility of Taiwan's net foreign assets against Mainland China: 1981–2009

The ongoing private capital inflows from Taiwan to China is a steady concern for Taiwan's policymakers. According to the official data, Taiwan's private enterprises have cumulatively invested about US$ 150–280 billion in China since 1987. However, the figures are widely perceived to be an underestimation and there exists a huge gap even between the estimations conducted by different government departments. The purpose of this paper is to re-estimate Taiwan's net foreign assets (NFA) against China, revising the so-called “dark matter” hypothesis proposed by Hausman and Sturzenegger (2006, 2007). In contrast to the current statistics being limited to registered direct investment or census investigation, the advantage of our model is that direct investment, portfolio investment, and the possible knowledge and property spillovers are included. We show that changes in Taiwan's NFA against China over GDP are negative in economic and political turmoil, such as the missile crisis in 1995, Asian financial crises in 1997–98, and global tsunami in 2007–09. From 2000, the growth rates we simulate are never lower than the official data till 2009. We also suggest some possible economic causes that lead to the huge Taiwan's NFA against China.     

REARGUARD POLITICS: HONG KONG'S MIDDLE CLASS

This paper reports on the emergence of the middle class in contemporary Hong Kong First, it gives the historical background of the rise of the middle class in the 1970s. This historical background is important to our understanding of Hong Kong's middle class because it highlights its symbolic significance—the realization of the so‐called Hong Kong dream—in the context of the local society. It is also relevant to our understanding of the shaping of its political outlook. The second section explores why the middle class stayed away from politics when the future of Hong Kong and democratization were the main topics in the political agenda of the 1980s and 1990s. Finally, the paper rounds up its discussion by reporting on the new grievances of the middle class amid the economic downturn after the Asian Financial Crisis.     

Party politics,political economy,and economic development in early eighteenth‐century Britain

Economic growth and change in eighteenth‐century Britain, both the expansion of pre‐industrial commercial society and the industrial revolution itself, have been explored using a variety of approaches. This article highlights a relatively ignored aspect of the problem, arguing that the state, politics, and political economic ideology played a central role. In particular, the early eighteenth‐century political victory of a version of political economy associated with the Whig party, which centred on manufacturing and consumption, was a prerequisite for the economic developments later in the century. The article begins by describing a political economy of manufacturing and its rival, a political economy of re‐exporting associated with the Tory party. It then explains how and why a political economy of manufacturing became dominant, examining both political elites and ordinary voters and petitioners. The growth of manufacturing and consumption must be understood, therefore, as political as much as economic events.     

The Political Economy of Public Expenditures in Agriculture: Applications of Concepts to Mozambique

This paper undertakes an investigation of agricultural public investments in Mozambique, drawing on insights from qualitative field interviews conducted in Mozambique, secondary data analysis and examination of the existing empirical literature, and by situating these insights within a political economy conceptual framework. We explore the driving factors behind the amount and allocation of public funds to agriculture, and behind the differential attention that various types of public investments receive in the process of making decisions on resource allocation. Agricultural public investments are more likely to be made that have two key features: higher attributability to politicians and donors of the output of public spending, and a shorter lag time between expenditures incurred and outputs produced. Evidence on geographical targeting of agricultural public funds corresponds more closely with theories suggesting that resources are used to sway communities opposed to the ruling party, rather than to reward political supporters. Examination of the effect of actors' and organisations' incentives and constraints on resource allocation in agriculture points to the importance of not treating “government,” “the ruling party” and other institutions as monolithic bodies; the paper instead highlights how differentiated interests within seemingly coherent institutions drive what gets public expenditure attention in the agricultural sector.     

Ownership concentration and financial policy of China's listed firms

This study examines the role of ownership concentration, measured by the top-five shareholders' equity ownership, in shaping corporate finance policies in China. Among privately-owned enterprises (POEs), ownership concentration has negative and positive effects on their debt and cash reserves, respectively, consistent with controlling shareholders' incentives to stave off business failures and ride out adverse future circumstances. These effects are more pronounced if POEs have high market-to-book, suggesting that growth opportunities heighten their controlling shareholders' desire to avoid debt and hoard cash. Although ownership concentration has similar effects on debt and cash in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), these effects in SOEs appear to reflect management discretion or conservatism. Our evidence suggests that ownership concentration is a key driver of corporate finance in an emerging market, but private and state ownership concentrations have seemingly similar but qualitatively different consequences.     

The changing dynamics of regionalism in South Korea's elections

One of the most persistent areas of discussion regarding South Korea's party and election systems is the continued elevation of regional personalities over political institutions. We seek to pour new wine into old bottles, however, by challenging a seldom‐considered assumption in Korean studies; that regionalism has exerted constant pressures across regime, province, and personality. There is a void in studying how transition to democracy has affected the dominance of personality‐based regionalism in Korean politics. We investigate democratization's impact on this phenomenon by examining the provincial distribution of legislative and presidential voting from 1971–2002. We employ a new indicator for personality‐based disproportionality, apply it to election outcomes at the provincial level, and find that the electoral impact of regionalism has changed over time across regimes, provinces, and political personalities. We find that regional voting disproportionality 1) increased immediately after transition; 2) has varied depending on personality and type of election; 3) is indeed low in provinces traditionally labeled as neutral; and 4) increased in the 2000 legislative election while declining in the 2002 presidential election.     

东西方第一夫人的政治角色对比

第一夫人通常为一个国家元首的妻子,其角色亦有可能由其他女性替代。其身份定位并不仅限于领导人的配偶,对于本国民众及其他国家而言,第一夫人首先是一种礼仪和形象的存在。随着现代政治、外交、媒体、礼仪等的发展及女性地位的提高,无论在东方世界还是西方世界,第一夫人在政治中的作用都在逐渐提升,从横向上和纵向上看,东西方第一夫人都在政治中扮演着相通又不同的角色。不同地域的第一夫人也创造了不同的政治现象,反映着所在地域的政治背景又影响着这一地区的政治进程。     

Is Real Estate Really an Inflation Hedge? Evidence from Taiwan*

This study examines whether Taiwan's housing returns hedge against expected and unexpected inflation. In other words, how well does the rise in housing returns compensate for the costs added as a result of the shrink in wealth and purchasing power? Within the exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity in mean model framework, we further explore the impact of conditional hetero‐risk on housing return and the influence of asymmetric information on conditional risk. Over the period from 1991 to 2006, the empirical results reveal negative relationships between housing returns and expected as well as unexpected inflation, proving the ineffective inflation hedge of Taiwan's housing investment. The determinant of this phenomenon is the leverage shock between ‘good news’ and ‘bad news’.     

浅谈学习型党组织及其创建策略

创建学习型党组织是创建学习型政党、学习型社会的重要举措,也是提高党的执政能力的有效之法。本文以学习型党组织为研究核心,对其产生的背景、内涵及特征、实践困境及解决对策进行了具体而详细的论述,希望能够引发我们进行一些有价值的思考。     

Renminbi in Ordinary Economies: A Demand‐side Study of Currency Globalization

Most studies of renminbi internationalization focus on the supply side, by examining China's own economic and political conditions. In contrast, this study addresses the demand side of renminbi internationalization, by providing an in‐depth analysis of renminbi use in ordinary foreign economies from both economic and political perspectives, with a particular focus on South Korea, China's next‐door neighbor. The study finds that sustainable indigenous market forces facilitating renminbi use in South Korea remain weak, despite the country's close economic ties with China. This research also shows, however, that the Korean Government has itself recently been able, through its policy measures, to generate new domestic support for greater use of the renminbi. These findings ultimately highlight the significant impact on the internationalization of a currency of the politics in the foreign countries using it.     

STOCK MARKET VALUATIONS OF R&D AND ELECTRONICS FIRMS DURING TAIWAN'S RECENT ECONOMIC TRANSITION

The objective of the present study is to investigate the market valuation of Research and Development (R&D) investments in the Taiwanese stock market from July 1988 to June 2002. The motivation stems from Taiwan's recent economic transition from a labor‐intensive, then to a capital‐intensive, and currently to a technology‐based economy. The results support not only the existence, but also the persistence of R&D‐associated mispricing. More importantly, it has become stronger as the electronics industry gradually dominates the economy. First, R&D‐intensive stocks tend to outperform stocks with little or no R&D. Second, the R&D‐intensity effect cannot fully be attributed to firm size. Third, the R&D‐intensity effect is more pronounced for firms in the electronics industry after 1996.     

Policing the provinces: A budgetary analysis

This article examines the impact of the Financial and Fiscal Commission's (FFC) new provincial financing dispensation on the allocation of police resources and on the deliv ery of police services at provincial level. Trends in the police budget since the late 1989s are examined, and the existing provincial allocation of police resources is analysed, as well as the relationship between crime rates, socio‐economic variables and the provincial allocation of police resources. A new framework for the provincial allocation of police resources is subsequently proposed. This framework is based on the FFC's proposed provincial grants formula and the establishment of a Crime Equalisation Fund (CEF) which allocates additional police resources based on each province's per capita crime rates and specific priority crimes. The article argues that the phased reallocation of po lice resources to provinces via this new framework will contribute to a more equitable and effective utilisation of existing police resources, which in turn should have a positive impact on the delivery of police services and the levels of crime. It also suggests that the further devolution of the police budget to provinces is likely to be inhibited by the ANC's commitment to retaining a national, centralised police service. Thus, any further devolu tion of budgetary powers with respect to policing will be determined by the outcome of centre‐province political dynamics rather than by the need to combat crime more effec tively at provincial levels.