International Review of Administrative Sciences

http://ras.sagepub.com/Administrative SciencesInternational Review of

http://ras.sagepub.com/content/78/2/305The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0020852312438523

2012 78: 305International Review of Administrative SciencesMei-Chiang Shih, Milan Tung-Wen Sun and Guang-Xu Wang

The historical institutionalism analysis of Taiwan's administrative reform

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

International Institute of Administrative Sciences

at: can be foundInternational Review of Administrative SciencesAdditional services and information for

http://ras.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://ras.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

What is This?

- Jun 12, 2012Version of Record >>

at NATIONAL TAINAN TEACHERS CLGE on August 30, 2012ras.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://ras.sagepub.com/

http://ras.sagepub.com/content/78/2/305

http://www.sagepublications.com

http://www.iias-iisa.org/

http://ras.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://ras.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://ras.sagepub.com/content/78/2/305.full.pdf

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml


International Review of

Administrative Sciences

78(2) 305–327

! The Author(s) 2012

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0020852312438523

ras.sagepub.com

InternationalReview ofAdministrativeSciencesArticle

The historical institutionalismanalysis of Taiwan’s administrativereform

Mei-Chiang ShihTunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan

Milan Tung-Wen SunNational Chi Nan University, Nantou, Taiwan

Guang-Xu WangNational University of Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan

Abstract

Government restructuring has been discussed extensively in Taiwan for more than

three decades, and the first NPM-style administrative reform programme, which

emphasizes ‘a leaner and businesslike government’, was launched in 1996. Since then,

NPM has been the key guideline producing a strong path-dependence effect for subse-

quent administrative reform programmes in Taiwan. This article examines the trajectory

of administrative reform in Taiwan from 1949 to 2010, the latter being the year when

the Organizational Act of the Executive Yuan was passed, which symbolically represents

the end of the current phase of administrative reform. Similar to many Asian countries,

exogenous and endogenous factors have induced efforts at administrative reform in

Taiwan. Although it is argued that it is difficult to generate any common path of admin-

istrative reform among Asian countries, the analysis of the case in Taiwan may provide

some observations for future discussions on this topic, such as evidence of political

manipulation, the transformation of the role of the state, the desire for an indigenous

reform strategy, and the demand to revitalize the civil service system.

Points for practitioners

1. Administrative reform is a political process, and pubic servants have to deal with

value conflicts carefully.

2. Professionalism and political neutrality are the two most important things in the

administrative reform process.

Corresponding author:

Mei-Chiang Shih, Tunghai University, Taichung, 40704, Taiwan

Email: [email protected]



3. Public servants can have a critical role in the administrative reform process when

the critical juncture appears, but democratic values and public purposes should be the

cornerstone for the bureaucrats in action.

Keywords

administrative reform, critical juncture, developmental state, historical institutionalism,

national development conference, path dependence, punctuated equilibrium

Introduction

Since the 1980s, the notion of a ‘lean, small, and capable’ government has beenthe benchmark for the administrative reform movement, and the era of retrench-ment has emerged on the horizon (Pierson, 1994, 2001). After the lifting ofMartial Law in 1987, drastic changes in the political and economic environmentsboth internationally and domestically have imposed severe challenges uponthe Taiwan government. Its traditional administration system was no longercapable of responding to the swift changes caused by globalization anddemocratization.

New Public Management (NPM), the underlying management philosophy of therecent reform movement, was introduced in Taiwan in the late 1980s.Administrative reform is definitely a painful and conflict-filled process. Peters(2001: 362) observed, when examining the history of such reforms, that theyhave not always been a success, and that the ultimate obstacle might be theWeberian bureaucratic system itself. The continuous expansion of the size of thegovernment paves the way for speculation about the optimization of bureaucraticinterests, and ‘big government’ encourages accusations of government failure(Tullock et al., 2002). Privatization to downsize government is considered to bean urgent task for dealing with the problem. However, the essence of administra-tive reform is politics (Maynard-Moody et al., 1986), or it can be perceived as apolitical activity of the administrative sector (Knott and Miller, 1987: ix). The costof reforms induced by internal and external political elements cannot be ignored(Fesler and Kettle, 1996: ch. 5).

There have been many discussions on administrative reform in Taiwan by localscholars of public administration (Hsiau, 1996; Shiau, 1995; Shih, 2009; Sun, 2002).Most of their studies have focused on the idea of an entrepreneur government, therelationship between NPM and reinventing government, or the legal dimension ofreform. Relatively less effort has been expended on examining the reform from ahistorical perspective. This article examines Taiwan’s administrative reform fromthe viewpoint of historical institutionalism. The balance of the article is structuredas follows. The section that follows reviews historical institutionalism and providesthe research framework. Administrative reform in Taiwan according to thephases of antecedent conditions, critical juncture, punctuated equilibrium, and

306 International Review of Administrative Sciences 78(2)



the outcome of institutional development are then discussed sequentially. Theresearch findings and implications are discussed, and conclusions are drawn.

Historical institutionalism

Historical institutionalism is sensitive to the operation of power among actors, andto the effects of institutional change initiated by critical juncture and positive feed-back from the institution itself (Pierson, 2000a, 2000b). It emphasizes the under-lying interactive mechanism that will influence an individual actor’s choice ofaction, and it is capable of explaining how a certain institution of governance isselected. Historical institutionalism treats stakeholders as self-interest maximizingactors, and sees different institutional structures as setting different political rules ofthe game, which subsequently shapes the preferences of stakeholders for action(Steinmo and Tolber, 1998: 168). Essentially, historical institutionalism views theinstitutional environment as an independent variable, the political behaviour ofactors as the dependent or intermediary variable, and policy outcome as thedependent variable. In order to understand institutional change, it proposes theexamination of three critical elements: path dependence, critical juncture, andpunctuated equilibrium.

Path dependence suggests that ‘what happened at an earlier point of time willaffect the possible outcomes of a sequence of events occurring at a later point intime’ (Pierson, 2004: 20). Once a particular track is chosen, the costs of reversal willbe very high. In the presence of positive feedback, the probability of further stepsalong the same path increases with each move down that path (Pierson,2000b: 252), and the reversal might invoke conflicts or the increasing sunk costs.Therefore, there is a tendency for path dependence to generate self-reinforcementsequences or positive feedback.

Critical juncture is a point during which a particular policy is selected from morethan one policy alternative. Despite the existence of other policy alternatives, oncea particular choice is designated, it becomes very difficult to return to the old tracklater on. The occurrence of critical juncture is the effect of the interactions of social,economic, political, or international forces. From the policy-making perspective,critical juncture is similar to Kingdon’s policy window in the policy output process(Koppenjan and Klijn, 2004: 54). The opening of a policy window is the result ofinteractions of three parallel streams – the political stream, policy stream, andproblem stream (Figure 1). The convergence of the three streams and the openingof the policy window will lead to the emergence of a winning coalition’s policyalternative. Both critical juncture and policy window emphasize the influence ofactors, the political environment, and incidental or unpredictable political oppor-tunities in the development of an institution.

Punctuated equilibrium illustrates the situation in which a long period of sta-bility is punctuated by a crisis, abrupt institutional change occurs accordingly, anda new institutional stasis sets in thereafter (Krasner, 1984). Mahoney (2001: 114)argued that after a particular institutional arrangement is selected at a critical

Shih et al. 307



juncture, a subsequent but more deterministic causal process will reproduce theinstitution without the recurrence of the original causes. The reproduction mech-anism will produce a ‘locked-in’ effect, in which a new course of action is lockedinto a certain institutional pattern that is very difficult to reverse.

Research framework

In this research, the analytical framework proposed by Mahoney (2001) is revisedand applied to analyse administrative reform in Taiwan (Figure 2). The arrows inFigure 2 indicate the effects of path dependence. First, antecedent conditions referto the historical factors that define and shape the available policy alternatives.Second, critical juncture is a point at which an institutional change is initiated ora particular policy is selected. Third, punctuated equilibrium consists of two com-ponents: structural persistence (i.e. the production or reproduction of a structuralpattern after institutional change) and reactive sequence (i.e. the conflicting andcounter-reactions toward a structural pattern). Finally, outcome is the resolutionof conflicts generated in the reactive sequence stage, and the stability of a structuralpattern is achieved.

As in many countries in the world, the current wave of administrative reform inTaiwan also involves a comprehensive transition of state roles and functions. Forthe purpose of simplicity, this research will only focus on what is probably the mostimportant project of administrative reform in Taiwan – the reorganization of theExecutive Yuan of the central government. To access the trajectory of the reorgan-ization efforts from an institutional perspective, administrative reform in Taiwanis divided into four phases: the antecedent conditions for reorganization(before 1996), the critical juncture for reorganization (1996–99), the process of

Policywindow

Political streamPoliticalwindow

Problemwindow

Policystream

Problem stream

Figure 1. The creation of a policy window

Source: Koppenjan and Klijn (2004: 54).




punctuated equilibrium (1999–2008), and the outcome of institutional development(after 2008).

Antecedent conditions for reorganization (before 1996)

The impact of the institutional legacy

The Kuomintang (KMT) government retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and the originalgovernment structure was transplanted from Mainland China and imposed on theisland. During this period of time, the KMT government declared martial law,through which all constitutional provisions were suspended in the same year.The immediate threat of ‘militarily liberating Taiwan’ from Mainland Chinaeased temporarily after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. Under the lead-ership of Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT government had become an authoritarianparty-state regime.

Within a relatively stable domestic environment built on the basis of tightpolitical control, the KMT government concentrated its efforts on economic devel-opment. As argued by Lin (2008: 98–100), similar to many developmentalstates such as Japan and South Korea, the legitimacy of the KMT governmentwas based on its ability to maintain a high level of economic performanceand social equality. When faced with the recession caused by the first oil crisisin the early 1970s, a relatively uncorrupt administrative machine and many

Antecedent conditions

Criticaljuncture

Structural persistence

Reactivesequence

Outcome

Punctuated equilibrium

Historical

factors that

define available

options and

shape selection

processes

Selection of

a particular

option (e.g.,

policy option)

from among

multiple

alternatives

Production and

reproduction of

an institution or

structural

pattern

Reactions and

counterreactions

to an institution

or structural

pattern

Resolution of

conflict

generated by

reactions and

counterreactions

Feedback

Figure 2. Research framework

Source: Revised from Mahoney (2001).

Shih et al. 309



capable technocrats, such as Li Kwoh-Ting (1910–2001), Sun Yun-Suan (1913–2006), and Yi Chun-Rong (1903–63), helped Taiwan to achieve an ‘economicmiracle’.

In 1971, the Republic of China (ROC) resigned from the United Nations,and the People’s Republic of China became a member of the UN SecurityCouncil. Although martial law was abolished in 1987, the ROC governmentstill claimed sovereignty over Mainland China until the Constitution wasamended in 1991. In order to uphold its political legitimacy, the KMT govern-ment preserved the original design of the central government as stated in theconstitution, which had been signed into effect in 1947. Although the basicstructure of the Executive Yuan, which originally consisted of eight ministriesand two commissions, remained unchanged, many new commissions, councils,and cabinet-level agencies were created to satisfy the expansion of govern-ment functions over the past six decades, with overlapping structures andjurisdictions.

During this phase, the KMT government launched many administrative reformprogrammes (Table 1) to improve administrative efficiency and capability.Essentially, administrative reform efforts before 1987 were all executive decisions;the Legislative Yuan had no veto power. These reform efforts were designed toconsolidate the KMT government’s governing power. Noticeably, most of thesereform programmes were merely functional adjustments, and did not lead to astructural transformation of the administrative system.

An authoritarian party-state regime upholding the doctrine of political legitim-acy, a developmental state emphasizing economic performance, and a persistentand capable administrative system all constitute the antecedent conditions for lateradministrative reform in Taiwan. The historical legacy constitutes a particularpattern of institutional development that has produced high internal and externalcosts for administrative reform.

Challenging factors

The institutional legacy was facing political, economic, and social challenges after1987, and the situation was getting worse in the 1990s. First, since the SecondWorld War Taiwan’s survival has been contingent upon the financial, military,and political support of the American government. This relationship of dependenceallowed the US government to exert a powerful influence on Taiwan’s democra-tization process. Since the mid-1970s, the US government had been employingformal and informal channels to express their concerns about the authoritarianKMT government’s suppression of the opposition movement and its violations ofhuman rights (Shiau, 1990: 48). The overbearing pressure from the US governmentforced the KMT regime to accelerate its political reform process, which partiallycontributed to the lifting of martial law in 1987. Second, as suggested by Shiau(1991), the rise of a new protectionist sentiment in the US in the 1980s was oneof the driving forces in weakening the dominance of the developmental state.




The Trade and Tariffs Act of 1984 demanded that the beneficiary countries of theGeneralized System of Preferences open up their markets and enhance the protec-tion of American property rights. Because of its heavy reliance on the US govern-ment, Taiwan was forced to undertake necessary economic liberalization measures.As a result, the new protectionism was an important exogenous factor in stimulat-ing the process of economic liberalization and internationalization in Taiwan(Shiau, 1991: 80–82).

Third, after the lifting of martial law in 1987, the disappointment and dissatis-faction that Taiwan’s citizens felt with the KMT government erupted. Not only did

Table 1. Administrative reform programmes in Taiwan (1949–87)

Year Administrative reform programmes Missions/Focus

1955 Committee on the Organizational

Responsibility of the Executive Yuan

and Associated Agency (Huang Chi-

Lu Committee)

Research and Development; Public

Relations; Managerial system;

Reducing Red-tape; Meeting pro-

cedures and effectiveness

1958 Presidential Office’s ad hoc Committee

for Administrative Reform (Wang

Yun-Wu Committee)

Organizational structure;

Organizational responsibility;

Administrative system;

Administrative procedures; Cost

reduction; Administrative efficiency

1966 Research Committee on Administrative

Reform

Administrative system; Taxing; Law and

regulation; Research, development,

and evaluation

1967 Civil Service Reform Examination-based personal placement

system; Civil service training pro-

gramme; Public employee’s salary

and motivation

1969 Administrative Procedures Reform Modern managerial principles; Planning,

implementation, and evaluation;

Efficiency; Serving the public

1972 Ten Items Reform Economic development; Personnel cut-

backs; Responsiveness; Document

management; Administrative theory

and practice connection

1974 Administrative Operations Reform Procedure and results transparency on:

1. Personnel; 2. Finance; 3. Opinion;

4. Reward and punishment

1979 Administrative Simplification Strengthen the ‘Ten Items Reform’;

Comprehensive planning;

Delegation; Research, development,

and evaluation; Serving the public

Sources: Cheng (1975); Chiang (1998: 62); Liu (1998); Sun (2002: 114–15).

Shih et al. 311



the frequency of social protests increase substantially (from 175 incidents in 1983 to1172 in 1988), but so did the scale of these protests (from an average of 74 par-ticipants per protest in 1983 to 268 in 1988) (Chu, 1992: 105). The first oppositionparty (the DPP; Democratic Progressive Party) was established in 1986. The DPPdemanded freedom of information and expression, the full-scale election of themembers of the Legislative Yuan and, eventually, the direct election of the presi-dent. On the other hand, the authoritarian KMT government was charged by thegeneral public and the opposition party with corruption, inefficiency, and anincreasing budget deficit. Taiwan’s Corruption Perception Index was not onlygetting worse year on year, but was also ranked one of the lowest among Asiancountries, compared with Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore (Table 2). In order toreact to challenges from the civil society and to stabilize its regime, the KMTgovernment, under the leadership of Chiang Ching-kuo, gradually started the pro-cess of political reform on the one hand, and initiated administrative reforms toenhance performance-based legitimacy on the other hand. These developments canbe viewed as the rise of the political stream.

In 1976, Taiwan’s GDP growth rate was 13.9 percent, it fell to 5.02 percent in1992, and to �2.2 percent in 2002 (Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting andStatistics, Executive Yuan, various years). Facing an increasingly competitive inter-national economic environment, in the 1990s a consensus gradually took shape thatthe traditional administrative system was neither adequate nor capable of elevatingTaiwan’s economic development.

The political reforms and changing state–society relations represented the pol-itical stream in which the legitimacy of the KMT government was being challenged.On the other hand, economic liberation/internationalization and administrativecorruption represented two dimensions of the emerging problem stream that the

Table 2. Corruption Perception Index: 1995–99

Year Taiwan Japan

South

Korea China

Hong

Kong Singapore

Total

countries

1995 Ranking 25 20 27 40 17 3 42

Score 5.08 6.72 4.29 2.16 7.12 9.26

1996 Ranking 29 17 27 50 18 7 54

Score 4.98 7.05 5.02 2.43 7.01 8.8

1997 Ranking 31 21 34 41 18 9 52

Score 5.02 6.57 4.29 2.88 7.28 8.66

1998 Ranking 29 25 43 52 16 7 85

Score 5.3 5.8 4.2 3.5 7.8 9.1

1999 Ranking 28 25 50 58 15 7 99

Score 5.6 6 3.8 3.4 7.7 9.1

Source: http://www.transparency.org/ (accessed 21 July 2010).




KMT government had to deal with. In the early 1990s, public administrationscholars in Taiwan started to advocate the concept of NPM in universities, inpre- and in-service training programmes for civil servants, in their publications,and in their recommendations to the government. Their suggestions for reinventinggovernment, for an entrepreneurial government or small government, graduallybegan to find favour in the public sector. NPM has been perceived as theremedy for solving the practical problems of governing, and can be identified asone of the sources of the policy stream.

Critical juncture for reorganization (1996–99)

The first presidential election by popular suffrage in Taiwan was held in 1996,which marked the symbolic beginning of Taiwan’s democratic politics. The firstTaiwanese politician, Lee Teng-hui, was elected president; and the DPP won thepresidential election and became the ruling party for the first time in 1999. Taiwanwas quickly and peacefully transformed from an authoritarian regime into a full-fledged democracy (Aspalter, 2002: 4).

Lee Teng-hui, the first Taiwanese president, succeeded Chiang Ching-kuo in1988. Lee was elected to his own term by the National Assembly in 1990, andwas elected by direct election as the ninth President of Taiwan in 1996. Duringhis administration, although the KMT still enjoyed a majority in the LegislativeYuan, Lee was facing tremendous challenges to his governance from both withinthe KMT and without, from the opposition DPP. In order to consolidate his powerand to change the negative impressions of citizens about the KMT government,Lee successfully initiated six stages of constitutional reform from 1991 to 2000.President Lee’s ‘quiet revolution’ was definitely an important step in Taiwan’spolitical development. But more significantly, the problem and policystreams were able to enlarge each other in the midst of this seemingly volatilepolitical stream. Solutions therefore had to be found in order to satisfy thedemands and expectations of Taiwan’s citizens for a better and sustainablegovernment structure.

The appearance of a critical juncture

From 23 to 28 December 1996, a bipartisan National Development Conference(NDC) was organized by the KMT. Former Vice-President Lien Chan chaired thisconference. The participants included 42 party representatives, 37 legislators, 33public servants, and 57 scholars or members of the social elite. The incentivesvaried among the different participants of the NDC. The KMT wanted to resolvethe crisis of legitimacy, and to create the legacy of Lee’s presidency, by playing theleading role in reform; the DPP was targeting to extend its political influence bychallenging the KMT’s reform proposals, which symbolically placed the DPP as a

Shih et al. 313



legitimate competitor of the KMT at the national level thereafter; the civil servantswere to provide their administrative expertise and to protect their own turf; and theother participants were eager to undo the evils of the authoritarian era and topromote their preferred reform proposals, respectively.

The goal of the NDC was to develop a consensus among the participants regard-ing critical issues in the process of transition from authoritarianism. The agenda ofthe NDC consisted of constitutional amendments, cross-strait relations, and eco-nomic development. One hundred and ninety-two recommendations were made inthe NDC, and the concept of NPM prevailed. Privatization, downsizing, andderegulation activities were recommended as the strategies for reinventing govern-ment (Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission, 2000).

Although the reorganization of the Executive Yuan was discussed in the NDC,no consensus was reached. One important institutional change was to downsize theTaiwan Provincial Government. The process started in 1996 and was officiallycompleted in 1999. According to the original design, the functions and manpowerof the provincial government should have been transferred to the county and citygovernments. But, in reality, the central government absorbed most if not all of thefunctions, manpower, and deficit of the provincial government (Chiang, 2005;Shih, 2009: 151).

Although the reorganization of the Executive Yuan and the downsizing of theprovincial government are two separate events, the latter can be viewed as thebeginning of the process of ‘punctuated equilibrium’, and the NDC can be per-ceived as the critical juncture (also the policy window) in which a particular policyoption was selected. From the perspective of path dependence, the expansion of theExecutive Yuan that resulted from the downsizing of the provincial governmenthas made the reorganization of the Executive Yuan more difficult.

The influence of the NDC on administrative reform in Taiwan is indisputable.After the NDC, the idea of an ‘entrepreneurial government’ was fully adopted bythe Executive Yuan. Subsequently, the Draft of the Basic Organizational Law ofthe Executive Agency of the Central Government (the blueprint and the legalfoundation for the Amendments to the Organizational Act of the ExecutiveYuan; Basic Organizational Law hereafter) and the Draft to the Law for theTotal Staff Size of Central Government Agencies were drawn up (Shiau,1998: 395). In essence, the NDC was an ‘adhocracy’ in that no formal authoritywas ever assigned to it. It was held during a time when the political environment inTaiwan was extremely turbulent. Although the NDC might have been designed bythe KMT to ease its crisis of legitimacy, it provided a platform upon which criticalissues were discussed during the period of authoritarian transition. The consensusreached in the NDC included major recommendations for political and adminis-trative reform that have served as the final objectives for many, if not most, reformprogrammes in Taiwan thereafter. Due to party competition, hostilities betweenthe KMT and the DPP have intensified in recent years. The expectation that anybipartisan agreement can be reached by means such as the NDC is unimaginable inthe foreseeable future.




The rise of the policy stream

Following the consensus reached in the NDC, former Premier Hsiao Wan-Changintroduced the Government Reinvention Programme at the beginning of 1998.This programme consisted of three major aspects of reform (Hsiau, 2000):Organization Reinvention, Human Resources and Service Reinvention, andLegal System Reinvention.

The Guidelines for Government Reinvention were drawn up by the ExecutiveYuan in 1998, and were the top priority on the government’s agenda. Two com-mittees – the Committee for the Promotion of Government Reinvention (CPRG)and the Consultative Committee for Government Reinvention (CCGR) – wereestablished to promote and monitor reform activities. Although the GovernmentReinvention Programme was placed at the top of the government’s agenda, thesetwo committees, the CPGR and CCGR, had only held a joint meeting once, on 19April 1998. For political considerations, the KMT government decided to withholdthe process of reform in 1999 and was shifting its efforts to winning the nextpresidential election, scheduled for 2000. It would seem that reform activitieshave always been suspended in order to reduce political controversies when animportant election is approaching. The arguments for administrative reform areusually disregarded when political interests are at stake (Moe, 1989).

The process of punctuated equilibrium (1999–2008)

Although the NDC had opened a policy window for administrative reform andsubsequent reform programmes had been proposed, the fundamental structure ofthe central government remains unchanged. After the DPP won the election,another ad hoc National Administrative Reform Conference (NARC), whichwas modelled after the NDC but smaller in scale, was held in 2001. To supportthe conclusions reached in the NARC, the Office of the President set up aCommittee of Government Reform (CGR) in charge of the task of promotingand restructuring ‘an energetic government that is globally competitive’.

Structural persistence in institutional development

As revealed in Table 3, the contents of the Government ReorganizationProgramme and Government Reinvention Programme are similar in upholdingthe concept of NPM. The Government Reorganization Programme consisted ofthree dimensions: (1) to restructure the functions and organizations of centralgovernment; (2) to strengthen the partnership between central and local govern-ments; and (3) to construct a partnership between the public and private sectors. Toachieve these objectives, a Committee for Promoting Restructuring of theExecutive Yuan was established on 29 May 2002. There is no doubt that thereorganization of the Executive Yuan has become a vital part of the DPP govern-ment’s administrative reform proposals. After careful evaluation of government

Shih et al. 315



Tab

le3.

Adm

inis

trat

ive

refo

rmin

Tai

wan

afte

r1987

Year

Adm

inis

trat

ive

refo

rm

pro

gram

mes

Mis

sions/

Focu

sR

esu

lts

1993

Adm

inis

trat

ive

Refo

rm

Pro

gram

me

Pri

nci

ple

:T

he

man

pow

er

of

the

Execu

tive

Yuan

(and

all

of

its

agenci

es)

was

cut

by

5.6

3%

in2

year

s.55

execu

tive

agenci

es

and

units

were

term

inat

ed,

com

bin

ed,

and

adju

sted.

Org

aniz

atio

nal

dow

nsi

zing;

Inst

itutional

lega

lizat

ion;

Man

pow

er

rational

izat

ion;O

pera

tional

modern

izat

ion

Focu

s:

Tra

nsp

arency

;Effect

iveness

;C

onve

nie

nt

serv

ice

1998

Gove

rnm

ent

Rein

vention

Pro

gram

me

Mis

sions:

NPM

;

Cre

ativ

e,

flexib

le,an

dre

sponsi

vego

vern

ment;

Nat

ional

com

pat

ibili

ty

Goal

s:

Org

aniz

atio

nal

rein

vention;

Civ

ilse

rvic

ere

form

;

Lear

nin

gfr

om

the

pri

vate

sect

or

toenhan

ce

effect

iveness

;

Const

ruct

ing

ale

arnin

gorg

aniz

atio

nal

culture

Pas

sed

and

imple

mente

dth

eG

uide

lines

for

Gov

ernm

ent

Rei

nven

ting.

Est

ablis

hed

the

Com

mitte

efo

rth

ePro

motion

of

Gove

rnm

ent

Rein

vention

(CPG

R),

whic

hin

cludes

thre

ew

ork

ing

groups

on

‘Org

aniz

atio

nal

Rein

vention’,

‘Hum

anR

eso

urc

ean

dSe

rvic

e

Rein

vention’,

and

‘Lega

lSy

stem

Rein

vention’.

Est

ablis

hed

the

Consu

ltat

ive

Com

mitte

efo

r

Gove

rnm

ent

Rein

vention

(CC

GR

);

Dow

nsi

zed

the

pro

vinci

algo

vern

ment.

2001

Gove

rnm

ent

Reorg

aniz

atio

n

Pro

gram

me

Mis

sions:

Est

ablis

hed

the

Com

mitte

eof

Gove

rnm

ent

Refo

rm

(CG

R).

Rein

venting

adm

inis

trat

ive

org

aniz

atio

n(t

he

Execu

tive

Yuan

);

Inte

r-go

vern

menta

lre

lations;

Adm

inis

trat

ive

culture

;

Dere

gula

tion

and

creat

ivity;

Public

opin

ion

and

polic

y-m

akin

g;

Polic

yim

ple

menta

tion

and

eval

uat

ion;

Qual

ity

of

serv

ice

deliv

ery

and

serv

ing

the

public

;

Polic

yad

voca

cyan

dco

mm

unic

atio

n

Stra

tegi

es:

Dere

gula

tion;D

ece

ntr

aliz

atio

n;O

uts

ourc

ing;

Corp

ora

tiza

tion

Sour

ces:

Chia

ng

(1998);

Shih

(2009);

Sun

(2002);

Wei(2

000).




functions and structure, four types of reform strategy (deregulation, corporat-ization, decentralization, and outsourcing) were adopted to achieve the above-mentioned objectives.1 Hence, the design of administrative reform in Taiwan hasbeen relatively consistent, and the central theme can be traced back to the NDC.The consistency in the design of administrative reform can be perceived as anindication of structural persistence.

The process for restructuring the Executive Yuan was not unhindered. TheAmendment to the Organizational Act of the Executive Yuan had been draftedand widely discussed since 1987. However, after nine premiers and over 20 years,it had still not been passed by the Legislative Yuan. In June 2004, the BasicOrganizational Law of the Central Government was finally passed by theLegislative Yuan with one condition attached: the Executive Yuan shouldsubmit the Draft Amendments to the Organizational Act of the Executive Yuanand the Draft Provisional Statute on the Adjustment of the Function, Business,and Organization of the Executive Yuan to the Legislative Yuan within threemonths.

The successful legislation of the Basic Organizational Law is the effect of pathdependence and the opening of another policy window for implementing subse-quent reforms, and the attached condition can be perceived as a reaction from theinstitutional development perspective. However, throughout the DPP’s regime(2000–08), the Draft Amendments to the Organizational Act of the ExecutiveYuan were never approved by the Legislative Yuan. During this period of time,the size of the Executive Yuan was still expanding (Table 4).

Reactive sequence of institutional development

The reasons for the pause in the structural reform of the Executive Yuan may beattributed to three factors: political, bureaucratic, and common pool problems.Although the DPP won the presidential election in 2000 and 2004, the majorityof the Legislative Yuan was still in the hands of the KMT. From the perspective ofinstitutionalism, a divided government implies the existence of more players withveto power over the reform process. Due to fierce political competition and a lackof mutual trust between the KMT and DPP, a majority of the Legislative Yuantended to block any reform programme proposed by the DPP government. Underthe pressure of citizen expectations for further reform, the KMT-dominatedLegislative Yuan took the unprecedented step of setting a limit to the number oforganizations permitted in the Basic Organizational Law, so as to restrain theinfluence of the DPP government. The Executive Yuan is only allowed to have13 ministries, four commissions, and five independent agencies. This is a dramaticreduction from the original size of 37 cabinet-level organizations.

However, a significant reduction in the number of organizations may cause theproblem of common pool resources (Ostrom, 1990). As long as the total number ofministries is set by law, the result will be a crisis of survival for every ministryand the segmental social interests represented by individual ministries.

Shih et al. 317



Consequently, each individual ministry has to mobilize every available resource towin support within the Executive Yuan and Legislative Yuan to revise the reformprogrammes and to delay the enactment of the Draft Amendments to theOrganizational Act of the Executive Yuan.

The lack of mutual trust, and the tension between the DPP administration andthe technocrats who were viewed as players within the KMT’s party-state regime,were also formidable obstacles. The transfer of power from the KMT to the DPPbroke the original reciprocal relationships between the ruling party and the bur-eaucracy. The DPP regime was beset by suspicions that the bureaucrats might stillbe loyal to the KMT and that they were too conservative to support the policies ofthe DPP government. Furthermore, the DPP government regarded reinventinggovernment as a strategy to remove the residual problems associated with theKMT’s authoritarian regime (Sun, 2008: 62). The ‘old’ bureaucrats might havefelt frustrated by the sense of distrust emanating from the leadership.

Table 4. The expansion of the Executive Yuan

Phase

Structure of

the Executive

Yuan Manpower

Expenditure

(NT$ 1000) Expansion Notes

1949

KMT

12 cabinet

ministries

NA NA Established firmly

the structure of 8

departments and

2 committees

Martial law period

1987

KMT

27 cabinet

ministries

NA NA Established 6

mission-orientation

committees

Lifting of martial

law

1993

KMT

29 cabinet

ministries

NA 1,070,718,166 Established 2

mission-orientation

committees

Lee administration

1998

KMT

34 cabinet

ministries

116,000 1,225,264,656 Established 5

mission-orientation

committees

Before downsizing

the Provincial

Government

2001

DDP

36 cabinet

ministries

181,282 1,458,476,645 Established 2

mission-orientation

committees

After the first

party turnover

2003–06

DDP

37 cabinet

ministries

157,209 1,334,245,980 Established 1

mission-orientation

committee

After the Code

for the Total Staff

Size of Central

Government

Agencies was

passed

2007

DDP

37 cabinet

ministries

154,328 1,511,713,010

Source: Extracted from website of the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics,

http://www.dgbas.gov.tw/mp.asp?mp¼ 1 (accessed 16 December 2009).




It can be observed that although both the KMT and the DPP governmentssupport the reorganization of the Executive Yuan, there are few connectionsbetween the intended objectives and the actual changes that have taken placesince 1987. During the KMT regime, conflicts among elected politicians, bureau-crats, and members of the legislature could be resolved and coordinated by theKMT’s party disciplinarians. With regard to the DPP government, however,Chen’s administration had no prior experience with managing the central govern-ment, and he had to work under a much more complicated political environmentthan that faced by the KMT regime. A divided government and the distrust ofthe bureaucracy were two major obstacles on his path to reform. Before 2008,administrative reform in the central government was more cosmetic thanfundamental.

Outcome of institutional development (after 2008)

The KMT’s victories in the congressional and presidential elections in 2008 indi-cated the opening of another policy window for the administrative reform move-ment in Taiwan. In the 7th Congressional elections held on 12 January 2008, theKMT won 81 seats out of 113, while the DPP won only 27 seats. This was the mostmajor setback for the DPP since 2000. On 20 March 2008, the KMT presidentialcandidate Ma Ying-Jeou received more than 7 million votes (58.45 percent), andbecame the 12th President of the ROC. This was the second instance of the over-turning of a party in the history of political development in Taiwan. The KMT notonly has a majority in the Legislative Yuan, but also controls the executive branch;therefore, the dilemma of a divided government has been resolved.

After the KMT regained power, the Basic Organizational Law was revisedtwice. The current version (revised on 12 January 2010) of the BasicOrganizational Law has expanded the number of organizations in the central gov-ernment: in addition to four special-function organizations (for example, theCentral Bank and the National Palace Museum), the number of cabinet-levelagencies has been increased to 14 ministries, 8 commissions, and three independentagencies (see Table 5). The Amendments to the Organizational Act of the ExecutiveYuan were enacted by the Legislative Yuan and promulgated by the President on 3February 2010.

Compared to the original size of 37, eight cabinet-level organizations are to beeliminated, and almost all of the newly created organizations are the result ofmergers and takeovers. For example, the National Development Council is theresult of a merger between the National Science Council and the Research,Development, and Evaluation Commission. Another example is the taking overby the Ministry of Education of the functions performed by the National YouthCouncil and the Sport Affairs Council. In addition to mergers and takeovers, thestatus of some organizations will be transformed from council to ministry.The Ministry of Culture will become the Council for Cultural Affairs; and the

Shih et al. 319



Environmental Protection Agency will become the Ministry of EnvironmentalResources.

Nowadays, all the major laws required by the administrative reform programmehave been passed. According to the schedule set by the Executive Yuan, all prep-arations have to be accomplished before December 2011. In January 2012, the newstructure of the Executive Yuan should start to function. After more than threedecades of struggle, Taiwan’s administrative system is gradually moving into a newera. Of course, administrative reform is a never-ending process. From a historicalinstitutionalism perspective, the institutional development of Taiwan’s centralgovernment has already been locked into a direction which is very difficult toreverse even if there were to be another ruling party change in 2012.

Table 5. Reorganization of the Executive Yuan in 2010

Ministry Council Independent agency Others

Ministry of the Interior Overseas Compatriot

Affairs Commission

Central Election

Commission

Directorate-General

of Budget,

Accounting, and

Statistics

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Veterans Affairs

Commission

Fair Trade

Commission

Central Personnel

Administration

Ministry of Finance National Development

Council

National

Communications

Commission

Central Bank

Ministry of Education Council of Indigenous

Peoples

National Palace

Museum

Ministry of Justice Council for Hakka Affairs

Ministry of Economic

Affairs

Financial Supervisory

Commission

Ministry of

Transportation and

Construction

Council of Maritime

Affairs

Ministry of Health and

Welfare

Mainland Affairs Council

Ministry of Culture

Ministry of Labour

Ministry of Agriculture

Ministry of Environmental

Resources

Ministry of Science and

Technology

Ministry of National

Defense

Source: Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission, Executive Yuan: http://rdec.gov.tw/ (accessed

12 July 2010).




Discussion

According to the revised Mahoney’s framework (Figure 3), the trajectory of admin-istrative reform in Taiwan can be divided into four phases. In searching for politicallegitimacy, an authoritarian party-state regime emphasized the importance of main-taining the orthodoxy of the government structure and a high level of economicperformance. These constituted the antecedent conditions for later administrativereform in Taiwan. Exogenous political and economic pressures triggered the liber-alization process and the subsequent administrative reform. The critical juncture wascharacterized by Lee Teng-hui’s success in winning the first presidential election bypopular suffrage and the convention of the bipartisan NDC. Together, these eventsopened up the policy window for institutional change, and the NPM concepts wereformally accepted as the reform strategies. However, due to party struggles and theincreasingly complicated international and domestic environments, the phenom-enon of administrative retrenchment and institutional entrenchment appeared inTaiwan’s administrative reform process. The size of the central government continu-ously expanded. The KMTwon the congressional and presidential elections in 2008,which solved the dilemma of a divided government and led the way for institutionaldevelopment. The outcome of 30 years of effort on administrative reform in Taiwanis that the Basic Organizational Law has been revised, the Organizational Act of theExecutive Yuan has been passed, and a reformed government structure will be ineffect in 2012.

This article is more about theory application than testing the fitness between thetheory and the experience of Taiwan. Historical institutionalism is a social scienceapproach that analyses the impacts of social, political, and economic behaviouralchanges on the development of an institution across time. It offers significantinsights into the trajectories of institutional development, but this approach hasto face the conventional critiques of lacking the ability to cope with institutional orpolicy change (Peters et al., 2005: 1275) and the renowned concepts (such as posi-tive feedback and path dependence) often appear to be a kind of metaphor forpolicy changes/persistence (Greener, 2002).

Therefore, there remain some uncertainties or problems embedded in the admin-istrative reform in Taiwan. Similar to many Asian countries, the process of dem-ocratization is a relatively new experience for Taiwan. Consequently, the impact ofparty turnover on the process of administrative reform is more significant than isthe case in many Western countries. In other words, the influence of politicalmanipulation may be more visible in the process of administrative reform inAsia than in the West. For the same reason, the professionalism and administrativeneutrality of the bureaucracy have potentially been compromised and damaged.How to revitalize the civil service system will be a major challenge in the future foradministrative reform in Taiwan. This issue is equally pertinent to many Asiancountries.

Although how the reforms will change the administrative organizations in termsof its capacity to perform and contribute to good governance remains to be seen,

Shih et al. 321



Ant

eced

ent c

ondi

tion

C

riti

cal j

unct

ure

Stru

ctur

al p

ersi

sten

ceR

eact

ive

sequ

ence

Hig

hly

stab

le

auth

orit

aria

n ad

min

istr

ativ

e sy

stem

P

ress

ures

of

glob

aliz

atio

n an

d

econ

omic

com

peti

tion

The

ris

e of

soc

ial

mov

emen

t and

civ

il

prot

ests

The

opp

osit

ion

mov

emen

t cha

llen

ged

the

legi

timac

y of

rul

ing

KM

T

Cor

rupt

ion,

inef

fici

ency

, and

incr

easi

ng b

udge

t

defi

cit

The

firs

t pr

esid

enti

al

elec

tion

by

popu

lar

suff

rage

in

199

6 A

bip

arti

san

‘Nat

iona

l

Dev

elop

men

t

Con

fere

nce’

The

intr

oduc

tion

of

the

NPM

(Gov

ernm

ent

Rei

nven

tion

Pro

gram

me)

The

firs

t pa

rty

turn

over

T

he B

asic

Org

aniz

atio

nal

Law

of

the

Exe

cutiv

e

Age

ncy

of C

entr

al

Gov

ernm

ent

The

Dra

t Am

endm

ents

to

the

Org

aniz

atio

n A

ct o

f

the

Exe

cutiv

e Y

uan

The

exp

andi

ng s

ize

of th

e

Exe

cuti

ve Y

uan

A d

ivid

ed

gove

rnm

ent

Mor

e ve

to p

laye

rs

The

lack

of

mut

ual

trus

t

The

dis

trus

t of

the

old

bure

aucr

ats

Mor

e co

smet

ic th

an

fund

amen

tal

Con

gres

sion

al

elec

tion

on

12

Janu

ary

2008

Pr

esid

entia

l el

ectio

n

on 2

0 M

arch

200

8

KM

T

has

both

th

e

Leg

isla

tive

Yua

n an

d

the

Exe

cuti

ve Y

uan.

Am

endm

ents

to

th

e

Org

aniz

atio

nal

Act

of

the

Exe

cuti

ve Y

uan

In

Janu

ary

2012

, th

e

new

st

ruct

ure

of

the

Cen

tral

Gov

ernm

ent

Feed

back

Out

com

e

Punc

tuat

ed E

quil

ibri

um

Fig

ure

3.

Tai

wan

’sad

min

istr

ativ

ere

form

from

the

pers

pect

ive

of

his

tori

calin

stitutional

ism




NPM ideas such as outsourcing, privatization, and the participation of the privateand non-profit sectors in providing public services have been absorbed into admin-istrative practices in Taiwan (Shih, 2007: 304). On the other hand, the Taiwangovernment has been facing international pressure for a more open market anddomestic calls to improve income distribution. Resolving how to drive a balancedcourse between these two types of pressure is crucial for the future development ofTaiwan. To a certain degree, Taiwan has gradually been transformed from a devel-opmental state into a regulatory one, which requires a different set of administra-tive arrangements. For many Asian countries on a similar developmentalpath, another round of administrative reform is needed to cope with the newchallenges.

Reform as a reflection of local experiences

Essentially, the organizational restructuring of the central government inTaiwan can be described as the interplay of three factors: in search of legitimacy,Western (i.e. American) influence, and the reflection of local administrativeexperiences.

As described previously, the original government structure was transplantedfrom Mainland China and was imposed on the island by the KMT governmentafter it retreated to Taiwan in 1949. To support the claim that the ROC govern-ment still had legitimate authority over both Mainland China and Taiwan, thesame government structure had to be maintained. The claim of legitimacy hadensured the stability of the organizational structure of the central governmentfor more than four decades. However, the criterion of legitimacy was changedafter 1987. The process of democratization has demanded that the governmentstructure be reformed in order to recognize the de facto jurisdiction of the ROCgovernment and to reflect the unique conditions and experiences of Taiwan. Thetask of searching for de jure legitimacy has been accomplished through the sevenrounds of constitutional amendment in the 1990s. Administrative reform pro-grammes before 1987 were designed to maintain the transplanted governmentstructure; those after 1987 were initiated to restructure the central government.The search for legitimacy has pushed administrative reform in Taiwan, althoughin different directions.

Furthermore, Taiwan’s administrative reform has been dominated by Americaninfluence. The influence can be explained in two ways. First, one of the originalcauses of administrative reform in Taiwan was the demand for economic liberal-ization and political democratization made by the US government. Second, it canbe argued that the development of the public administration discipline in Taiwanwas assisted by the US government. The National ChengChi University (NCCU),in conjunction with the University of Michigan, established the Center of Publicand Business Administration Education to provide on-the-job training pro-grammes for government officials in 1962 as a part of the technical assistant

Shih et al. 323



programme sponsored by the US government. After the Department of PublicAdministration was established in 1963, the NCCU established the first GraduateSchool of Public Administration in 1964 (under the same cooperative plan with theUniversity of Michigan) and the first doctoral programme in public administrationin 1989. Moreover, there are many American-trained public administration scholarsin Taiwan. Currently, there are 25 institutional members of the Taiwan Associationfor Schools of Public Administration and Affairs (TASPAA), an institutional mem-bership organization analogous to the NASPA, and the number of faculty membershas increased from 67 in 1990 (Sun, 1992), to 156 in 2002 (Chiang, 2002), and to 258in 2009.2 Among the 258 public administration scholars, about 44 percent of themgraduated from universities in the United States, and about 40 percent of themgraduated from universities in Taiwan. From the beginning, it has been generallyrecognized that public administration discipline in Taiwan is heavily influenced byAmerican theories, concepts, and practices. In addition to public administrationscholars, many government officials and social elites are also former graduate stu-dents who had studied in US universities. Third, the notions of NPM and reinvent-ing government have served as the blueprint for administrative reform efforts since1990. The administrative reform initiated in 1998 was named the ‘GovernmentReinvention Programme’, and the reform strategies mainly consist of NPM-relatedconcepts. Without doubt, Taiwan public administration is largely shaped by theWestern NPM/Reinvention paradigm.

Although the trajectory of Taiwan’s administrative reform can be characterizedas a ‘transplanted’ government structure that has been shaped by American publicadministration theories and concepts, the restructuring of the central governmenthas to be recognized as an attempt to draw lessons from indigenous local experi-ences in Taiwan over the past 60 years. Given Taiwan’s position in the inter-national political and economic structures, its geographic location, and thepotentially threatening cross-strait relations, the design of the new organizationalstructure of the Executive Yuan has to take these conditions and the indigenousTaiwan administrative experiences into consideration; the creation of the OverseasCompatriot Affairs Commission, Council of Maritime Affairs, and the NationalDevelopment Council are good examples. The argument is not about whether thepublic administration community in Taiwan has developed any self-awareness ofbecoming independent of Western influence. It is to recognize the fact that theoutcomes of the administration reform movement in Taiwan represent reflectionsof the indigenous administrative experiences. From a comparative perspective, thetrajectory of administrative reform in any individual nation will demonstrate that itoccurred in a country-specific time and space. Exogenous pressures will be detectedand digested differently according to an individual nation’s position in the inter-national political and economic structures, and diverse responses will be proposedand implemented on the basis of domestic conditions. The observations extractedfrom the trajectory of administrative reform in Taiwan may serve as a startingpoint for further discussions on the topic of Asian characteristics of administrativereform in a post-NPM era.




Conclusion

Political democratization and economic liberalization have forced the Taiwan gov-ernment to concentrate its efforts on administrative reform to meet the challengesimposed by exogenous and endogenous threats. Administrative reform has to besupported by an amicable political environment. Without success in political dem-ocratization, administrative reform and institutional rearrangements would be dif-ficult to achieve in Taiwan. After decades of reform efforts, the character andnature of Taiwan’s administrative system have been fundamentally transformed.Furthermore, a new round of struggles can be observed in two directions: bureau-crats and politicians, and state and market. Demonstrating the mixed characteris-tics of a developmental and regulatory state, Taiwan is potentially moving intoanother era of administrative reform.

It has taken 30 years for the Taiwan government to accomplish part of its originalobjectives of institutional adjustments. District and local government reforms have yetto be achieved. Although the Ma administration has successfully pushed through theorganizational reform of the Executive Yuan, dealing with issues such as healingcross-strait relations, signing the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement(ECFA) with Mainland China, and managing natural disaster relief has nearlyexhausted Ma Ying-Jeou. Facing mayoral elections in five metropolitan cities at theend of 2010, and a presidential election in 2012, it remains unclear whether he and theKMT have sufficient political capital and will to carry through further administrativereforms. In theory and in practice, administrative reform is a never-ending process.

Notes

1. See the website of the Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission, ExecutiveYuan, http://reform.rdec.gov.tw/

2. The 2009 data are generated from the home page of every public administration depart-

ment affiliated with the Taiwan Association of Schools of Public Administration andAffairs (TASPAA).

References

Aspalter C (2002) Democratization and Welfare State Development in Taiwan. Hong Kong:

Ashgate.Cheng CC (1975) The Study of Administration. Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Printing

(in Chinese).

Chiang MH (1998) The political and social analysis of administrative reform in Taiwan:A historical re-evaluation. Journal of Public Administration 2: 55–91.

Chiang MH (2002) A description of public administration education in Taiwan. Paper pre-sented at the Memorial Conference for Professor Ching-Chen Cheng’s 100th Birthday.

Taipei: The Chinese Public Administration Association, 16 November 2002 (in Chinese).Chiang TS (2005) From innovation to executive: The change and predicaments of govern-

ment reform in Taiwan. Political Science Review 26: 79–128 (in Chinese).

Chu Y-H (1992) Crafting Democracy in Taiwan. Taipei: Institute for National PolicyResearch (in Chinese).

Shih et al. 325



Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan (various years)National Statistics.

Fesler JW and Kettle DF (1996) The Politics of the Administration Process, 2nd edn.

Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.Greener I (2002) Agency, social theory and social policy. Critical Social Policy 22(4):

688–705.

Hsiau CJ (1996) National development and administrative reform. National Policy DynamicAnalysis 13: 2–3 (in Chinese).

Hsiau CJ (2000) Reinventing government and party turnover. National Policy Dynamic

Analysis 15: 9–11 (in Chinese).Hsieh JT (2001) The History of Revision to the ROC Constitution. Taipei: Yang-Chih (in

Chinese).Knott JH and Miller GJ (1987) Reforming Bureaucracy: The Politics of Institutional Choice.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Koppenjan J and Klijn EH (2004) Managing Uncertainties in Network: A Network Approach

to Problem Solving and Decision Making. London: Routledge.

Krasner SD (1984) Approaches to the state: Alternative conceptions and historicaldynamics. Comparative Politics 16(2): 223–245.

Lin W-P (2008) Transformation or adaptation? The changing developmental state in

Taiwan. Taiwanese Journal of Political Science 37: 95–150 (in Chinese).Liu SH (1998) The ecological environment and forces for promoting the current adminis-

trative reforms. Journal of Public Administration 2: 13–51.Mahoney J (2001) Path-dependent explanations of regime change: Central America in com-

parative perspective. Studies in Comparative International Development 36(1): 111–141.Maynard-Moody S, Stull D and Mitchell J (1986) Reorganization as status drama: Building,

maintaining, and displacing dominant subcultures. Public Administration Review 46:

301–310.Moe T (1989) The politics of bureaucratic structure. In: Chubb JE and Peterson PE (eds)

Can the Government Govern? Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 267–329.

Ostrom E (1990) Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.New York: Cambridge University Press.

Peters BG (2001) Institutional Theory in Political Science. London: Continuum.

Peters BG, Pierre J and King DS (2005) The politics of path dependency: Political conflict inhistorical institutionalism. Journal of Politics 7(4): 1275–1300.

Pierson P (1994) Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics ofRetrenchment. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Pierson P (2000a) Not just what, but when: Timing and sequence in political process. Studiesin American Political Development 14(1): 72–92.

Pierson P (2000b) Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics. American

Political Science Review 94(2): 251–267.Pierson P (2001) Introduction: Investigating the welfare state at century’s end. In: Pierson P

(ed.) The New Politics of the Welfare State. New York: Oxford University Press, 1–16.

Pierson P (2004) Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.

Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission (2000) Government Reinvention.Taipei: Morning Star.

Shiau CJ (1990) The state’s role in the democratization and liberalization process of postwarTaiwan. Taiwanese Journal of Political Science 1: 31–64 (in Chinese).




Shiau CJ (1991) The societal nationalism: The transformation of authoritarianism inTaiwan. Taiwanese Journal of Political Science 2: 71–92 (in Chinese).

Shiau CJ (1995) Taiwan’s New Ideology: Nationalism. Taipei: Report of the Ministry of

Interior (in Chinese).Shiau CJ (1998) Entrepreneurship and government reinvention. Taiwanese Journal of

Political Science 9: 363–384 (in Chinese).

Shih JN (2007) Government reform experience in Taiwan (1990–2006): A critical assess-ment. In: Caiden GE and Su TT (eds) The Repositioning of Public Governance. Taipei:Best-Wise Publishing, 291–320.

Shih JN (2009) Administrative reform in Taiwan: An uneasy and unfinished political task.In: Ichimura S and Bahl R (eds) Decentralization Policies in Asian Development. Danvers,MA: World Scientific Publishing, 141–160.

Steinmo S and Tolbert C (1998) Do institutions really matter? Comparative Political Studies

31(2): 165–187.Sun MTW (1992) Public administration in Taiwan: The state-of-the-art. PhD dissertation,

Political Science Department, Kent State University, OH.

Sun MTW (2002) The evaluation of administrative reform in Taiwan: From authoritariangovernment to democratic governance. Journal of Comparative Asian Development 1(1):105–126.

Sun MTW (2008) Rhetoric or action? An assessment of the administrative reform in Taiwan.Journal of Asian Public Policy 1(1): 52–70.

Tullock G, Seldon A and Bardy GL (2002) Government Failure: A Primer in Public Choice.Washington, DC: Cato Institution.

Wei CL (2000) Government Reinvention Movement, Taipei: Morning Star (in Chinese).

Mei-Chiang Shih is professor of the Department of Public Management and Policyat Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan, where he teaches public administra-tion, social science research methods and organization theory at undergraduateand graduate levels.

Milan Tung-Wen Sun is Professor of the Department of Public Policy andAdministration at National Chi Nan University in Puli, Taiwan where he teachespublic policy, intergovernmental relations and Q method at undergraduate andgraduate levels.

Guang-Xu Wang is assistant professor of the Department of Public Administrationand Management at the National University of Tainan in Tainan, Taiwan where heteaches cross-boundary management, social science research methods and publicmanagement at undergraduate and graduate levels.

Shih et al. 327



Documents

International Review of Administrative Sciences