Kharis Templeman - Blog

Taiwan Studies at APSA 2018: Join Us in Boston!

8/23/2018

Cross-posted from the Conference Group on Taiwan Studies website

The Conference Group on Taiwan Studies is a Related Group of the American Political Science Association. For this year's annual conference in Boston, CGOTS is sponsoring three special panels on Taiwanese politics. In addition, we encourage all APSA attendees to drop by the Conference Group on Taiwan Studies reception, Thursday, August 30, from 7:30-9:00pm in Marriott Salon K. Free (!!!) drinks and hors d'oeuvres will be served.

All CGOTS members are also invited to attend our annual business meeting, to be held right before the reception from 6:30-7:30, next door in Marriott Salon J. We'll go over budget and membership numbers and nominate the new CGOTS leadership team.

Please also check out the three official CGOTS panels, as well as other Taiwan-related presentations at the conference; details and a schedule can be found at the CGOTS website.

Political Reform in Taiwan under Tsai Ing-wen: A Disappointing Record So Far

6/10/2018

Campaign flag for Tsai Ing-wen and DPP legislative candidate Wu Chi-ming, January 2016.

This piece originally appeared at Taiwan Insight on May 29, 2018.

Before the 2016 election brought them to power, Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) pledged to pursue political reforms that would address fundamental, long-standing weaknesses in Taiwan’s democratic system.

Three of these became particularly apparent during the Ma Ying-jeou era: an unbalanced executive-legislative relationship that concentrated extraordinary power in the president’s hands, a disproportional electoral system that worked to the Kuomintang’s (KMT) advantage, and a deep, popular distrust of many of Taiwan’s “accountability institutions”—especially judges and prosecutors, the constitutional court, and the Control Yuan.

Two years on, these weaknesses are still apparent. The ruling DPP’s record on political reform has so far been disappointing: despite some positive changes, it is mostly a series of unfulfilled pledges, missed opportunities, and unintended consequences.

First, on executive-legislative relations: Taiwan’s current constitutional structure allows for what former premier and Ma loyalist Jiang Yi-huah has termed a “super-presidency.” Under Ma Ying-jeou, power migrated from the Executive Yuan to the Presidential Office, from multi-party coalitions to a single-party KMT majority, and from intra-party pluralism to presidential dominance of the ruling party, exacerbating a massive resource asymmetry between the executive and legislative branches of government.

Nowhere was this imbalance more apparent during the Ma era than in the conduct of cross-Strait relations. The legislature had no effective way to exercise oversight over what was, arguably, the most consequential negotiations with the People’s Republic of China that a Taiwanese leader had ever entered into. Moreover, of the 28 agreements signed and submitted to the legislature for record or review, only four were submitted for review, meaning they had to face an up-or-down vote of the full Legislative Yuan before they took effect. In other words, most of these agreements were considered under rules even more favourable to the executive branch than ordinary legislation—a remarkable concession to the executive branch, considering the sensitivities involved.

Given this history, one might expect the DPP to prioritize passage of a Cross-Strait monitoring mechanism law that requires, at minimum, an affirmative vote of the legislature for any agreements to take effect. But no: now that the DPP is in power, and Tsai Ing-wen rather than Ma Ying-jeou is responsible for cross-Strait relations, talk of such a law within DPP circles has faded away. So, too, have other DPP proposals to strengthen the legislature’s hand, such as providing legislators access to more resources and larger, professional staffs, establishing a legal basis for oversight of the National Security Council and Presidential Office, and selecting a truly neutral, non-partisan legislator as the Speaker. Instead, the Legislative Yuan today is at as much of a disadvantage in its collective relations with the DPP-controlled executive as it ever was during the Ma Ying-jeou administration. (President Tsai even has the additional benefit of having a close party ally, Su Jia-chyuan, serving as Speaker; President Ma had to deal with his long-time KMT rival, Wang Jin-pyng, in that position.)

What of the second problem area, the electoral system? Here the chief complaint is about disproportionality: party vote shares do not correspond very closely to their seat shares in the Legislative Yuan. In 2008, for instance, the DPP won only 24% of the seats with 37% of the district vote, while the KMT won 72% of the seats with 51% of the vote. As the chief loser under the new system, the DPP became a fierce critic of it (though they had voted for the previous change), and Tsai Ing-wen herself pledged the party would support switching to a German-style mixed-member compensatory system, and perhaps increase the number of seats—reforms that together would ensure much greater proportionality and better representation of small parties in the legislature.

So what has happened on this front, now that the DPP is in a position to do something about it?
Again, not much. The DPP has entertained no serious proposals to change the electoral system, because it, not the KMT, is now the chief beneficiary of the disproportionality! To make matters worse, the ruling party has made two counterproductive concessions to the “direct democracy” reform agenda pushed by the New Power Party (NPP) and Taiwanese independence activists. First, the ruling party supported a change to the elections and recalls act, lowering thresholds for the number of signatures needed to initiate a recall against a public official and for a recall to be valid. Second, they approved an amendment to the referendum act, again lowering the threshold for signatures to qualify a referendum for a vote, and turnout for a vote to be valid.

Unfortunately, referendums are a dubious way to resolve complex or emotionally-charged policy issues in a representative democracy, and they have already had unintended consequences that some of their chief proponents have found unpleasant: the first legislator to face a recall vote under the new law was none other than its biggest proponent, NPP chairman Huang Kuo-chang, and one of the first referendum proposals to pass the first qualification hurdle aims to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage.
The prospects for reform of accountability institutions are more promising. A committee appointed by Tsai Ing-wen continues to debate how to improve independence and professional capacity of judges, and whether to implement “citizen judges” or an Anglo-American style jury system to increase public participation and trust in the judicial process. And there is a good chance that some version of these reforms will eventually be adopted.

Nevertheless, here, too, Tsai and the DPP have opted for a cautious, gradualist approach to reforms. It is revealing what is not even on the table: there is no public discussion of changing the selection process or the terms of the Council of Grand Justices, Taiwan’s constitutional court, to ensure they cannot all be appointed by the same president, nor has there been any attempt to reconfigure or abolish the Control Yuan; instead, the DPP appears content simply to fill these bodies with Tsai appointees, and leave it at that. The DPP also voted to abolish the Special Investigative Division whose leader got into trouble for sharing confidential information with President Ma, but it has done nothing to address the more fundamental problem of how to guarantee prosecutorial independence from political pressure, especially from the president.

Instead, what the ruling DPP has prioritized is promoting aspects of “transitional justice”: disgorgement of illegitimate KMT party assets (pan-blue supporters might describe this, less charitably, as “getting the KMT”), an official apology to Taiwan’s indigenous minorities, and the establishment of a Transitional Justice Promotion Committee to engage in additional truth-telling about the authoritarian past. All of these initiatives are important steps forward for Taiwan, and if executed well, could strengthen the legitimacy and democratic bona fides of the political system.

But in the long run, none will obviate the need for further changes in executive-legislative relations, electoral representation, and accountability institutions. If President Tsai wants to leave a positive democratic legacy, she should turn her attention, and that of her party, toward these issues over the next two years.

TDSP Event: Gary Hamilton, "The Long Road to Making Money"

2/8/2018

The Taiwan Democracy and Security Project at Stanford University is hosting a presentation today by Gary Hamilton, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Washington. Prof. Hamilton will speak about his new book from Stanford University Press, Making Money: How Taiwanese Industrialists Embraced the Global Economy.

The talk is free and open to the public. Additional details can be found at the official event page.

Abstract
Making Money: How Taiwanese Industrialists Embraced the Global Economy is a record of a thirty-year research project that Gary G. Hamilton and Kao Cheng-shu began in 1987. A distinguished sociologist and university administrator in Taiwan, Kao and his research team (which included Prof. Hamilton during his frequent visits to Taiwan) interviewed over 800 owners and managers of Taiwanese firms in Taiwan, China, and Vietnam. Some were re-interviewed over ten times during this period. The length of this project allows them a vantage point to challenge the conventional interpretations of Asian industrialization and to present a new interpretation of the global economy that features an enduring alliance between, on the one hand, American and European retailers and merchandisers and, on the other hand, Asian contract manufacturers, with Taiwanese industrialists becoming the most prominent contract manufacturers in the past forty years.

Bio
Gary G. Hamilton is a Professor Emeritus of International Studies and Sociology at the University of Washington. He specializes in historical/comparative sociology, economic sociology, with a special emphasis on Asian societies. He is an author of numerous articles and books, including most recently Emergent Economies, Divergent Paths, Economic Organization and International Trade in South Korea and Taiwan (with Robert Feenstra) (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Commerce and Capitalism in Chinese Societies (London: Routledge, 2006), The Market Makers: How Retailers Are Changing the Global Economy (co-editor and contributor, Oxford University Press, 2011; paperback 2012), and Making Money: How Taiwanese Industrialists Embraced the Global Economy (with Kao Cheng-shu, Stanford University Press, 2018).

How Successful is the Chinese Regime?

1/6/2018

My latest review essay, entitled "The China Model: How Successful is the Chinese Regime?" is now out at the Taiwan Journal of Democracy.

More on the themes of that piece below, but first, If you are a China-watcher, you really need to read Edward Wong's terrific new article in the New York Times, "A Chinese Empire Reborn." Wong was a China correspondent for the NYT for a decade, and he cuts through a lot of the crap about the nature of the Chinese regime. China's rise as a global power, he rightly notes, is occurring mostly through its accumulation of economic and military clout, rather than through emulation of its system and values by ordinary people and elites in other countries. That is, China's rise to date has been mostly about increasing its "hard", not "soft", power, and that order shows few signs of changing anytime soon.

There's one assumption in that essay that bothers me a bit, though. It's that the Chinese regime is inevitably going to continue its ascension in the world--that is, though it probably won't attract more admirers or imitators any time soon, China's relative hard power will continue its rapid increase. Here's the end of Wong's essay:

"Chinese citizens and the world would benefit if China turns out to be an empire whose power is based as much on ideas, values and culture as on military and economic might. It was more enlightened under its most glorious dynasties. But for now, the Communist Party embraces hard power and coercion, and this could well be what replaces the fading liberal hegemony of the United States on the global stage.

It will not lead to a grand vision of world order. Instead, before us looms a void."

What I question is Wong's implicit assumption that China will inevitably continue on an upward trajectory over the next several decades. It's true that the relative power of the United States is declining ("fading" is a bit strong, but we'll leave that aside for now), as it has been since its early post-Cold War peak. It's also true that the "liberal hegemony" of the current global order, and especially the capacity, and willingness, of the United States to maintain it, is under considerable short-term threat right now.

But it is not obvious to me that China is especially well-positioned to benefit from these trends, because it's not self-evident that its current economic expansion will continue much longer, or that Chinese leaders will be able to adapt very effectively to the challenges looming on the horizon. The Chinese economy has grown quickly over the last 35 years, but despite many assertions that China's growth record is unprecedented, it is not--over a similar time interval, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and before them Japan registered equally impressive growth, with a much more equal distribution of gains, to boot. And those earlier "economic miracles" followed a broadly similar pattern--a greater role for market forces, increasing connectivity to the global economy, export-oriented development, high savings rates, broad investment in education and infrastructure, but a continued privileged role for an activist state.

Here's the kicker: in all of those cases, the economy inevitably slowed down, and at the same time their "demographic dividends" also ended. The transition to a different growth model has been wrenching, and it's not clear that Japan, or South Korea, or Taiwan or Singapore has hit on the right balance of reforms--in particular, improved corporate governance, strengthened rule of law, and banking reforms--that would improve their long-term economic prospects. (Singapore has probably come the closest so far.) So why should we expect China to? On all these dimensions, China actually looks much worse than its Asian predecessors, and it has the added burden of a hugely unequal distribution of wealth and a political system that suffers from a grievous, long-term legitimacy deficit. (This leaves aside, too, the question of whether its reported GDP figures actually reflect anything close to reality.) It also is facing a dire demographic picture made worse by the One-Child Policy: its workforce-age population is already declining, and its total population is projected to begin falling in less than 20 years. That does not sound like a country destined for global hegemony to me.

For a more detailed discussion, check out my essay at the Taiwan Journal of Democracy.

Taiwan Democracy Project Seminar: Alan Romberg

10/24/2017

On October 30 at 4pm, the Taiwan Democracy Project at Stanford University will host our next event of the fall quarter, a talk by Alan Romberg, Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center. The talk is co-sponsored with the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford. Among other research contributions, Mr. Romberg writes a regular report for the Hoover Institution's China Leadership Monitor that covers developments in Cross-Strait relations and the US-PRC-Taiwan trilateral relationship.

The title of his talk is "Cross-Strait Relations after the 19th Party Congress." The event is free and open to the public; details on the talk and speaker are below.

Abstract
Speculation about the course of cross-Strait relations after the upcoming 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress ranges from greater PRC flexibility to substantially increased pressure on Taiwan. The Mainland’s persistent suspicion about President Tsai Ing-wen’s motives has only deepened with her appointment of avowed independence supporter Lai Ching-te as premier, especially because of the prospect that Lai could eventually become president. As a result, once the internal tugging and hauling leading up to the Party Congress has been settled, some people predict that Beijing will resort to military intimidation or even actual use of force to bring Tsai to heel. What are the PRC’s goals? What are Taipei’s? What role can and should the United States play in seeking not only to avoid conflict but to reestablish a reliable level of stability in cross-Strait relations and to prevent Taiwan from once more becoming a highly divisive issue in U.S.-PRC relations? Alan Romberg will address these issues in his talk on October 30th.

Bio
Alan Romberg is a Distinguished Fellow and the Director of the East Asia program at Stimson. Before joining Stimson in September 2000, he enjoyed a distinguished career working on Asian issues including 27 years in the State Department, with over 20 years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. Romberg was the Principal Deputy Director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Deputy Spokesman of the department. He served in various capacities dealing with East Asia, including director of the Office of Japanese Affairs, member of the Policy Planning staff for East Asia, and staff member at the National Security Council for China. He served overseas in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Additionally, Romberg spent almost 10 years as the CV Starr Senior Fellow for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and was special assistant to the secretary of the navy.
Romberg holds an M.A. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Taiwan Democracy Project Seminar: James Lee

10/13/2017

On October 17, the Taiwan Democracy Project at Stanford University will host our first event of the fall quarter, a talk by James Lee of Princeton University. The talk is co-sponsored with the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford. Mr. Lee's talk will draw from his dissertation research, which examines the role of the United States in the emergence of the "developmental state" in Taiwan--the interlocking set of state and regime institutions that oversaw the island's transformative economic growth from the 1960s through the 1980s.

The title of his talk is "U.S.-China Rivalry and the Origins of Taiwan's Developmental State." The event is free and open to the public; details on the talk and speaker are below.

Abstract
Scholars have credited a model of state-led capitalism called the developmental state with producing the first wave of the East Asian economic miracle. Using historical evidence based on original archival research, this talk offers a geopolitical explanation for the origins of the developmental state. In contrast to previous studies that have emphasized colonial legacies or domestic political factors, I argue that the developmental state was the legacy of the rivalry between the United States and Communist China during the Cold War. Responding to the acute tensions in Northeast Asia in the early postwar years, the United States supported emergency economic controls in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to enforce political stability. In response to the belief that the Communist threat would persist over the long term, the U.S. strengthened its clients by laying the foundations of a capitalist, export-oriented economy under bureaucratic guidance. The result of these interventions was a distinctive model of state-directed capitalism that scholars would later characterize as a developmental state.

I verify this claim by examining the rivalry between the United States and the Chinese Communists and demonstrating that American threat perceptions caused the U.S. to promote unorthodox economic policies among its clients in Northeast Asia. In particular, I examine U.S. relations with the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan, where American efforts to create a bulwark against Communism led to the creation of an elite economic bureaucracy for administering U.S. economic aid. In contrast, the United States decided not to create a developmental state in the Philippines because the Philippine state was not threatened by the Chinese Communists. Instead, the Philippines faced a domestic insurgency that was weaker and comparatively short-lived. As a result, the U.S. pursued a limited goal of maintaining economic stability instead of promoting rapid industrialization. These findings shed new light on the legacy of statism in American foreign economic policy and highlight the importance of geopolitics in international development.

Bio
James Lee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He specializes in International Relations with a focus on U.S. foreign policy in East Asia and relations across the Taiwan Strait. James also serves as the Senior Editor for Taiwan Security Research, an academic website that aggregates news and commentary on the economic and political dimensions of Taiwan's security.

Taiwan-Related Events at APSA 2017

8/8/2017

The Conference Group on Taiwan Studies is a special Related Group of the American Political Science Association. For this year's annual APSA conference in San Francisco, CGOTS is hosting two panels, a business meeting, and a reception. All are open to registered conference participants. Details can be found here and below.

Thursday, August 31

4:00-5:30pm, Westin St. Francis, Georgian Room
CGOTS Panel I. Legitimacy Issues in Taiwanese Politics

1. "Personality Traits and Individual Attitude toward the Independence/Unification Issue in Taiwan,"
Dennis Weng, Sam Houston State University (Author)
Ching-hsing Wang, University of Houston (Author)

2. “The Rise of Cause Lawyers and the Rule of Law in Taiwan”
Chin-shou Wang, National Cheng Kung University (Author)
Yu-Hsien Sung, University of South Carolina (Author)

3. “Framing Effects of Pro-Gay and Pro-Family Activism in Taiwan”
Shih-chan Dai, University of Massachusetts-Amherst (Author)
Chung-li Wu, Academia Sinica (Author)

4. “Generation and Identity in Taiwan: Change and Continuity”
T.Y. Wang, Illinois State University (Author)
Su-Feng Cheng, National Chengchi University (Author)

Chair:
Yao-yuan Yeh, University of St. Thomas
Discussants:
Chien-kai Chen, Rhodes College
Aram Hur, New York University

Friday, September 1

4:00-5:30pm, Parc 55, Hearst Room
CGOTS Panel II. Parties and Elections in Taiwan

1. “Accounting for Legislative Candidate's Donation and Spending”
Chia-hung Tsai, National Chengchi University (Author)
Nathan F. Batto, Academia Sinica (Author)
Su-Feng Cheng, National Chengchi University (Author)
Ching-hsin Yu, National Chengchi University (Author)

2. “Electoral Institutions, State Subsidy Rules, and the Party System in Taiwan”
Yen-Pin Su, National Chengchi University (Author)

3. “The Emergence of New Parties: A Case Study of the New Power Party in Taiwan”
Chi Huang, National Chengchi University (Author)
Kah-yew Lim, National Chengchi University (Non-Presenting Co-Author)
Lu-huei Chen, National Chengchi University (Author)
Eric Chen-hua Yu, National Chengchi University (Taipei) (Author)

4. “The Issue Structure of Voter Choice in Taiwan’s 2016 Presidential Election”
Caleb M. Clark, Auburn University (Author)
Karl Ho, University of Texas, Dallas (Non-Presenting Co-Author)
Alexander C. Tan, University of Canterbury (Author)

Chair:
Hans Stockton, University of St. Thomas
Discussants:
Lu-Cheng Dennis Weng, SUNY, Cortland
Austin Horng-En Wang, Duke University

6:30-7:30pm, Hilton Union Square, Golden Gate 1
Conference Group on Taiwan Studies Business Meeting
Open to all CGOTS members

7:30-9:00pm, Hilton Union Square, Golden Gate 3
Conference Group on Taiwan Studies Reception
Open to CGOTS members and guests; food and drink provided

APSA 2017 Mini-Conference: Electoral Malpractice in East and Southeast Asia

8/7/2017

The Westin St. Francis San Francisco, with Union Square in the foreground.

The 2017 American Political Science Association annual conference will be held in San Francisco, CA, from August 31-September 3, 2017. One of the new formats that APSA introduced last year is a "mini-conference"--that is, a day-long set of panels that share a related theme and set of questions, considered in a more flexible format than the standard, rigid APSA section panels.

This year I have had the privilege, with Netina Tan of McMaster University, to organize a mini-conference on electoral malpractice in East and Southeast Asia. The event will run all day Saturday, September 2, and is open to all registered APSA conference attendees. The full schedule of panels is below.

Venue: Westin San Francisco, California Room West
Date: Saturday, September 2, 8:00am-5:30pm

8:00am-9:30am Panel 1: Comparative Perspectives and Methodological Issues

Welcome (Netina Tan, McMaster University and Kharis Templeman, Stanford University)
Keynote: “Electoral Integrity and Democratic Practices in Asia” (Larry Diamond, Stanford University)
“Methodological Challenges in the study of Electoral Malpractice” (Carolien Van Ham, University of New South Wales)

Chair: Allen Hicken (University of Michigan)
Discussant: Allen Hicken (University of Michigan)

9:30am-11:00am Panel 2: Types of Electoral Malpractice

“Drivers of Pre-Electoral Manipulations in the 2013 Cambodian Election” (Max Groemping, University of Sydney)
“Pre-Electoral Malpractice in Single-Party Dominant Malaysia” (Kai Ostwald, University of British Columbia)
“Electoral Malpractice in Myanmar: A Comparison of the 2010 and 2015 Elections” (Marco Bünte, Monash University, Malaysia)
“The Use and Abuse of Electoral Rules to Manipulate Election Outcomes in Thailand” (Joel Selway, Brigham Young University)

Chair: Larry Diamond (Stanford University)
Discussant: Jorgen Elklit (Aarhus University)

11:00-11:15pm Break

11:15pm-12:45pm Panel 3: Effects of Electoral Malpractice

“Gerrymandering and Malapportionment in Singapore” (Netina Tan, McMaster University)
“Voting for the Incumbent in Single Party Regimes: Fear or Conviction?” (Guillem Riambau, Yale-NUS and Kai Ostwald, University of British Columbia)
“Voting in the Dark: How Vietnamese Voters Negotiate Low Information Elections” (Paul Schuler, University of Arizona)
“Silent Manipulation: Effects of Polling Place Distance on Voting Behavior in Hong Kong’s Electoral Autocracy” (Stan Hok-Wui Wong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

Chair: Kenneth McElwain (University of Tokyo)
Discussant: Meredith Weiss (University at Albany, Suny)

12:45pm-2:00pm Lunch Break

2:00pm-3:30pm Panel 4: Sources of Electoral Integrity

“Sources of Electoral Integrity: Reforming the Central Election Commission in Taiwan” (Kharis Templeman, Stanford University)
“Violations of Electoral Integrity in the Myanmar 2015 Election” (Elin Bjarnegard, Uppsala University)
“Free and/or Fair? How Japanese Courts Rule on Election Campaign Regulations” (Kenneth Mori McElwain, Tokyo University)
“Restricting free speech in the name of fairness: Campaign regulation in South Korea” (You Jong-Sung, Australian National University)

Chair: Jorgen Elklit (Aarhus University)
Discussant: Allen Hicken (University of Michigan)

3:30-3:45pm Break

3:45-5:00pm Panel 5: Challenges of Electoral Reforms

“Challenges of Electoral Reforms and Engineering in Mongolia” (Michael Seeberg, University of Southern Denmark)
“The Menu of Manipulation: Reform and Malpractice in Contemporary Indonesian Elections” (Sarah Shair Rosenfield, Arizona State University)
“The Decline of the Effectiveness of Vote-Buying as Electoral Mobilization Strategy in Taiwan” (Wang Chin-Shou, National Cheng Kung University)
“Using Election Forensics to Detect Fraud and Strategic Behavior in the Philippines” (Allen Hicken, University of Michigan)

Chair: Guillem Riambau (Yale-NUS)
Discussant: Carolien Van Ham (University of New South Wales)

5:00pm-5:30pm Panel 6: Roundtable Discussion

Comparative Regional Implications, Publications and Steps Forward (Netina Tan, McMaster University and Kharis Templeman, Stanford University)

Varieties of Democracy Post-Doctoral Fellowships

12/1/2016

The Varieties of Democracy project has posted a call for applications for up to two new post-doctoral fellows to join their team at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. This is a terrific opportunity to be part of the next wave of quantitative research on comparative democracy and democratization. Gothenburg is also a fantastic city to spend time in. I've reposted the full call for applications below.

V-Dem is seeking to replenish our research agenda and are therefore looking for scholars who have completed their degree no more than four years before the application deadline; present exciting new ideas; and that have a strong record of accomplishments in or more of the following areas:

Comparative democratization (e.g., sequencing of democratization, democracy and development, democracy and governance/corruption, elections and democratization, or other areas);
Regional expertise;
Research methods (e.g., aggregation, Bayesian IRT-modeling, experiments, expert coding in data collection, causal inference in time series analysis, sequencing algorithms and methods, or related methods);
Previous experience from larger-scale research- and other projects are meritorious, as well as competencies in data management.

The Postdoctoral Research Fellow is expected to conduct research primarily in collaboration with the Principal Investigator of V-Dem, Staffan I. Lindberg, with a focus on one or several of the main questions of the research program. Excellence in English (orally and written) is expected, competence in Arabic, French, Spanish and/or Portuguese is a merit. The call is open to candidates who (at the time of assuming the position) have a PhD in political science or related field.

More information is available here.
Applications are submitted online here.

APSA Conference Group on Taiwan Studies -- Call for Papers

11/22/2016

The American Political Science Association's Conference Group on Taiwan Studies has issued a call for paper proposals for the 2017 annual conference, August 31-September 3, 2017, in San Francisco.

CGOTS is one of APSA's "related groups" organizations. Founded in 1990, it serves to promote Taiwan studies in the broader political science community, as well as to foster connections between Taiwan-based and U.S.-based scholars with substantial research interests in Taiwan.

For applicants with a Taiwan-related proposal, submitting to CGOTS can substantially improve one's chances of acceptance to the conference. The formal call for papers is reposted below; the deadline to submit applications is January 9, 2017.

The 2017 American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting will be held from August 31-September 3 in San Francisco, CA. The conference theme is “The Quest for Legitimacy.”

CGOTS invites paper and panel proposals on Taiwan’s domestic politics and cross-Strait and international relations that are consistent with the theme of “The Quest for Legitimacy.”

The concept of legitimacy is fundamental to many classic debates in political science. At the same time, legitimacy is core to numerous contemporary political issues. Across the world and our discipline, questions about political legitimacy ensue. Salient debates—whether about representation, equality, voice, accountability, institutionalization, protest, revolutions, international norms, disputes, war—can all contain questions of legitimacy at their core. Moments of social and political change often center on contestation about what is considered legitimate, including some of the more prominent movements in Taiwan in the last several years such as demonstrations against nuclear power, government land expropriation, the death of a military conscript due to harsh corporal punishment, and of course the Sunflower Movement. Legitimacy is also closely tied to numerous core concepts, including the creation and maintenance of order, the proper exercise of power, and the nature and role of political authority. The legitimacy of state actions in Taiwan has become more contested in recent years, most notably in the conduct of cross-Strait relations with the People’s Republic of China. So has the legitimacy of the law-making process, particularly questions about how far majorities can go to implement policies over minority objections.

For the 2017 Annual Meeting, we encourage participants to consider questions about legitimacy in contemporary Taiwanese politics. These could include exploring legitimacy in the context of Taiwan’s contested international standing, or its complicated and shifting relationship with the People’s Republic of China. And on the domestic front, a wide range of questions speak to the issue of legitimacy. How, for instance, is the issue of “transitional justice”—itself a highly contested concept—understood by different sides of the political spectrum? What does public opinion tell us about the relative legitimacy of different democratic institutions—the judicial system versus elected officials, for instance? How is the spread of new technologies reshaping how citizens understand “legitimate” political behavior and discourse, or affecting the accountability of representatives to their constituents? How do citizens and elites understand the rule of law, and how might this vary across different issue areas and subsets of the population? There are also important questions about procedural legitimacy: to what extent do those on the losing side of political outcomes, from elections to government policies to judicial rulings, accept the legitimacy of decisions which hurt their own interests? Finally, there are important unresolved questions about the legitimacy of the definition of citizenship in Taiwan: should immigrants from the PRC be treated differently from immigrants from Southeast Asia, for instance?

We encourage papers that tackle these and related questions.

Please send proposals to APSA: (http://community.apsanet.org/annualmeeting/call/papers)

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Kharis Templeman (kharis@stanford.edu), CGOTS Coordinator. The deadline for proposals is January 9, 2017. Decisions on the proposals will be communicated to you in March 2017. Travel support for CGOTS panelists is subject to the availability of external funding.