A well-known puzzle in the study of Asian democratization is the inverse relationship between the level of democracy and the support for the "D" word. According to the latest Asian Barometer survey, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Cambodia have a much higher level of overt support for democracy than those well-recognized democracies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. To unravel this puzzle, the authors develop a new regression method for the two-dimensional typological analysis including the "D" word and the liberal democratic attitude.
One of the routine assumptions of students of democratization has been that there is a close, causal relationship between liberalization and democratization. The former is said to drive those who concede it toward convoking credible elections and, eventually, tolerating ruler accountability to citizens. The link between those processes of regime transformation is alleged to be the mobilization of civil society.
In this panel discussion, three leading scholars in the field of China and Taiwan studies examined recent developments and future prospects for Taiwan's participation in international organizations, from the World Health Assembly to a range of other UN-affiliated and other international organizations (including new and less formal groupings such as the Community of Democracies). More broadly, this panel discussion will examine how Taiwan is now trying to, and might in the near future, engage the international community and international organizations, in an era when relations across the st
On April 26 and 27, the Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for Health Policy (CHP-PCOR) at Stanford University will hold a two-day conference on Governance and Health. The conference aims to bring together political scientists, economists, medical doctors, and health policy experts seeking to provide better answers as to how governance may hinder or improve health in developing countries.
A much-discussed question in political philosophy concerns the selection of a metric for interpersonal comparisons. Person's respective social positions can be construed in terms of their welfare, resources, opportunities, or some other distributive share. Much of this debate has been governed by considerations relating to responsibility and luck. This paper explores some of the problems surrounding responsibility.
On May 10-11, 2010 the Program on Good Governance and Political Reform in the Arab World at CDDRL held its international inaugural conference. In line with the Arab Reform Program's vision, the conference featured internationally renowned scholars, activists, and practitioners from the Arab world, Europe and the United States.
Access to life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical treatments is a nagging problem for millions of Latin Americans. In several countries of the region, judicial actions for the protection of basic rights have proved to be instrumental for gaining access to such goods. Brazil and Colombia are, allegedly, the two Latin American countries with the largest number of right to health cases.
The symposium brought together scholars and current and former government officials from Taiwan, China, and US to take stock of cross-strait relations over the past decade. It will also assess the future development of cross-strait interactions from different angles including economic, political, and security perspectives.
The abrupt fall of an authoritarian regime often surprises the world with apparent suddenness. Given the right moment of opportunity, skillfully applied pressure can prove a thuggish regime surprisingly brittle. However, these moments are prepared through a long struggle for democratic rights within a closed society. Technology can help create these openings, organize activists, document abuses and share information in the moment that the eyes of the world are watching.
The explosion of mobile phones into a region that, until recently, was nearly devoid of telecommunications infrastructure provides a valuable opportunity to explore the potential effects of information and communication technology on various economic
Despite the absence of formal institutions to constrain opportunistic behavior, some autocracies successfully attract private investment. Prior work explains such success by the relative size of the autocrat's winning coalition or the existence of legislatures. Gehlback and Keefer advance on this understanding by focusing on the key constraint limiting coalition size and legislative efficacy: organizational arrangements that allow group members to act collectively against the ruler.
On November 5-6 2010, the global Network of Democracy Research Institutes (NDRI) convened a conference in Quito, Ecuador, on "Political Clientalism, Social Policy, and the Quality of Democracy: Evidence from Latin America, Lessons from Other Regions." The meeting was cosponsored by three NDRI member institutes: the Washington-based International Forum for Democratic Studies (IFDS) of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Ecuador's Grupo FARO, and the Program on Poverty and Governance at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).
Taiwan’s special municipality elections have been viewed by many as the “mid-term” for the Ma Ying-jeou presidency, bearing important political significance for the 2012 presidential election. In this special seminar, Professor Yun-han Chu, one of the leading political scientists in Taiwan and also President of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, will analyze the recent special municipality elections and their implications for Taiwan’s future political trends.
We can describe and measure the degree of power of a given individual or other actor, a node, in a network as the extent to which that node can influence the probability for another node that that other node will behave, obtain outcomes, or inhabit configurations that are consistent with the perceptions, preferences, principles or policies of the power-exercising node.