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.

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.

 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.

 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
 
 

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
 
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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

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

1. Welcome (Netina Tan, McMaster University and Kharis Templeman, Stanford University)
2. Keynote: “Electoral Integrity and Democratic Practices in Asia” (Larry Diamond, Stanford University)
3. “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

1. “Drivers of Pre-Electoral Manipulations in the 2013 Cambodian Election” (Max Groemping, University of Sydney)
2. “Pre-Electoral Malpractice in Single-Party Dominant Malaysia” (Kai Ostwald, University of British Columbia)
3. “Electoral Malpractice in Myanmar: A Comparison of the 2010 and 2015 Elections” (Marco Bünte, Monash University, Malaysia)
4. “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  

1. “Gerrymandering and Malapportionment in Singapore” (Netina Tan, McMaster University)
2. “Voting for the Incumbent in Single Party Regimes: Fear or Conviction?” (Guillem Riambau, Yale-NUS and Kai Ostwald, University of British Columbia)
3. “Voting in the Dark: How Vietnamese Voters Negotiate Low Information Elections” (Paul Schuler, University of Arizona)
4. “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   

1. “Sources of Electoral Integrity: Reforming the Central Election Commission in Taiwan” (Kharis Templeman, Stanford University)
2. “Violations of Electoral Integrity in the Myanmar 2015 Election” (Elin Bjarnegard, Uppsala University)
3. “Free and/or Fair? How Japanese Courts Rule on Election Campaign Regulations” (Kenneth Mori McElwain, Tokyo University)
4. “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 

1. “Challenges of Electoral Reforms and Engineering in Mongolia” (Michael Seeberg, University of Southern Denmark)
2. “The Menu of Manipulation: Reform and Malpractice in Contemporary Indonesian Elections” (Sarah Shair Rosenfield, Arizona State University)
3. “The Decline of the Effectiveness of Vote-Buying as Electoral Mobilization Strategy in Taiwan” (Wang Chin-Shou, National Cheng Kung University)
4. “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 

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

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.

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.
 

​One of the more interesting developments in Taiwan's 2016 general election was the rise of so-called  "Third Force" parties--completely new entrants into the political system, rather than break-aways from the KMT or the DPP.  While some of the media commentary got a bit carried away about the significance of these new parties, the founding of one, the New Power Party (NPP), did pose a serious threat to the DPP's chances of winning a majority in the legislature. As an offshoot of the Sunflower Movement, the NPP positioned its message in a way calculated to appeal to pan-green voters, and it recruited high-profile candidates to run in district races, not just the party list. These district candidates had the potential to split the pan-green vote in what everyone expected would be a very anti-KMT year, and in a worst-case scenario for their side, help the KMT hold on to their legislative majority. 

In the end, a pan-green split didn't happen. A key reason is that the DPP headed off the threat early: the party formed a kind of pre-electoral coalition by yielding 11 districts to the NPP and other non-DPP candidates in exchange for their support not to run against DPP candidates elsewhere. And the districts that the DPP yielded were, with one exception, far past the critical 57th seat needed to deliver a legislative majority. It turned out to be a good deal for the DPP, which won 68 seats overall. It also, more surprisingly, turned out well for the NPP, which won all three district seats and five overall and became the third largest party in the LY. 

The NPP Surprise
My own expectation going into the election was that the NPP candidates would perform worse, on average, than a generic DPP challenger. (In fact, if you read that linked post closely, I was even more specific: 2-4 points worse, on average.) The rationale was pretty simple: Freddy Lim, Hung Tzu-yung, and Huang Kuo-chang were already household names, but their close association with the Sunflower Movement, and the acerbic rhetoric of Huang, especially, suggested they would be fairly polarizing as candidates. And in the traditionally blue-leaning districts of Taipei 5 (Lim) and New Taipei 12 (Huang), I thought they would turn off more voters than they attracted with that approach. 

So what actually happened? In the graph above, I've plotted the vote share of each DPP and DPP-endorsed district candidate against Tsai Ing-wen's share of the presidential vote in the same district. DPP incumbents are represented by solid dots; challengers (i.e. non-incumbents) by hollow ones; NPP candidates by hollow squares, and other non-DPP candidates by hollow triangles. (A hearty thank you to Frozen Garlic for doing the yeoman's work of sorting the presidential race vote totals by LY district and making these data publicly available.)

Thoughts on this below the break. 

​The 2016 American Political Science Association Annual Conference will be this week, from Thursday, September 1 through Sunday, September 4, in Philadelphia, PA. There's over a dozen panels planned with Taiwan-related content. For those interested, I've listed below all the presentations I could find in the conference program. 

​First and foremost, the Conference Group on Taiwan Studies has two special panels this year, one on domestic politics and one on foreign relations. We strongly encourage anyone with even a passing interest in Taiwan studies to attend at least one panel (and bring your friends!)--our ability to retain a special conference group on Taiwan is contingent on good turnout at these organized events, and we take attendance to help make our case to APSA. The panels are:
​
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2:00-3:30pm 
Marriott Rm 414
CGOTS PANEL 1: Preferences, Identity, and Taiwan's 2016 Election
This panel discusses and examines how democratic consolidation and the changing domestic political preferences, identity, and social cleavages have shaped Taiwan's 2016 election.

Chair: Da-chi Liao, National Sun Yat-sen University

• "Coattail and Reverse Coattail Effects: The Case of Taiwan's 2016 Election," Chi Huang and Kaw-yew Lim, National Cheng Chi University
• "Legislative Co-sponsorship Networks in Taiwan," Jinhyeok Jang, University of Louisville
• "Political Cleavage in Taiwan: Is There a Shift?," T.Y. Wang, Illinois State University, and Su-feng Cheng, National Cheng Chi University
• "The Legal Complex in Taiwan's Democratization," Chin-shou Wang, National Cheng Kung University
• "The Psychological Cognition and Vote Choices in Taiwan," Chung-li Wu and Hsiao-chien Tsui, Academia Sinica.

Discussants: Dennis Weng, SUNY Cortland; Kharis Templeman, Stanford University

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 10:00-11:30am 
Marriott Rm 414
CGOTS PANEL 2: Cross-Strait Relations and Economic Integration
This panel discusses and examines cross-strait ties in the wake of Taiwan's 2016 elections and the implications for Taiwan's economic integration policy.

Chair: Shelley Rigger, Davidson College

• "China's Foreign Policy Transformation: Implications for Cross-Strait Relations," Nien-chung Chang Liao, Academia Sinica
• "Cross-Strait Relations in the Aftermath of Taiwan's 2016 Elections," John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, University of South Carolina
• "Prospect of the TPP under the Scope of Taiwan's Party Realignment," Rou-lan Chen, National Sun Yat-sen University
• "Reconciliation without Convergence?: Theorizing Taiwan-China Relations," Vincent Wei-cheng Wang, Ithaca College
• "When Frictions Do Not Cause Rift: Explaining Ambiguity in Alliance Management," Ping-kuei Chen, University of Maryland

Discussants: Dennis Hickey, Missouri State University; Hans Stockton, University of St. Thomas

CGOTS will also hold its reception Saturday evening from 6:30-8pm in Marriott Rm 411, and its business meeting right after, from 8-9pm, in Marriott Rm 410. 

My piece at Ketagalan Media is on the Pingpuzu Aborigines included in Tsai Ing-wen's apology ceremony on August 1: 

Read the whole thing here. 

August 1 is Indigenous Peoples' Day in Taiwan--a day that usually passes without much media attention. This year is different: President Tsai Ing-wen is planning to issue a formal apology on behalf of the Republic of China government to Taiwan's indigenous peoples and to outline her government's indigenous policies. That has now become a partisan issue. Five of the six aborigine (原住民 yuanzhumin) district representatives in the current Legislative Yuan are going to skip the event; the only one to attend is the only district DPP member, Chen Ying (陳瑩). The other two legislators, Kolas Yotaka (谷辣斯·尤達卡) of the DPP and Kawlo Iyun Pacidal (高潞·以用·巴魕剌) of the NPP, are both party list legislators, and so have to take their own party line into greater account. 

Although they're often overlooked in writing about Taiwan's electoral politics, Taiwan has reserved seats in the Legislative Yuan for aborigine representatives since 1972. Today, representatives from these districts hold more than 5% of the total seats in the legislature (6/113)--if they were all part of the same party, they would be the third largest in the LY, ahead of both the NPP and PFP. For anyone interested in learning more, I have a CDDRL working paper on the history of these seats and the evolution of aborigine representation in the Legislative Yuan. The abstract is below.