This is a CDDRL's Special Event within our Democracy in Taiwan Program. It is also co-sponsored by the Public Diplomacy/Emerging Publics Project of the Center for the Pacific Rim at University of San Francisco. In this seminar, Dr. Richard Madsen will talk about his new book that explores the religious renaissance that has reformed, revitalized, and renewed the practices of Buddhism and Daoism in Taiwan and how this religious renaissance embraces democracy modernity.  

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Richard Madsen received an MA in Asian studies and a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard.

"Madsen is a genial and well-informed guide, both to social-political change in Taiwan and to the ins and outs of religious movements. His engaging writing skillfully interweaves profound insights and themes into the descriptive analytical narrative. Democracy's Dharma presents new material based on recent research while offering a fresh spin on thinking about Asian religions."–Thomas Gold, editor of Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi

During the past 40 years, Professor Hu has been teaching and conducting research in health economics, particularly in healthcare financing and the economics of tobacco control.  Hu was a Fulbright scholar in China. He has served as consultant or advisor to the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Medicine, the Rand Corporation, the Ministry of Health in the People's Republic of China, Department of Health and Welfare in Hong Kong, Department of Health in the Republic of China (Taiwan), and many private research institutions and foundations. 

Professor Hu will speak to us immediately after an April trip to China, sharing his research and perspectives on the economics of tobacco control and the debate about healthcare system reforms in China (including a possible link between the two through financing expansions in coverage through increased tobacco taxation).

This is a CDDRL's Special Seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program. In this seminar, Alan Romberg will analyze the impacts of Taiwan’s recent elections on the three legs of the U.S.-PRC-Taiwan triangle.

Alan D. Romberg is Distinguished Fellow and Director of the East Asia Program at the Henry L. Stimson Center. He served in the U.S. government for over 25 years, including as Principal Deputy Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff (1994-98) and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Deputy Spokesman of the Department (1981-85). Romberg was C.V. Starr Senior Fellow for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (1985-1994). He has written extensively on U.S. policy toward the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan and is author of Rein In at the Brink of the Precipice: American Policy Toward Taiwan and U.S.-PRC Relations (Washington, D.C.: The Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003).

Romberg holds an MA from Harvard University and a BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

His post-election analysis of the cross-strait relations issue can be seen on Hoover's China Leadership Monitor, No.25.

This is a CDDRL's Special Seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program. In this seminar, Dr. Chia-hung Tsai will present up-to-date survey data regarding Taiwan’s 2008 presidential election. He will also discuss the dynamics of the presidential campaign and their implications for prospective voters.  

Chia-hung Tsai is Associate Research Fellow of the Election Study Center at the National Chengchi University. He received his PhD in political science from the Ohio State University, 2003, and he worked at the Election Study Center since then. Chia-hung Tsai’s research interest lies in voting behavior and methodology, especially Bayesian statistics. Winner of the “NCCU Outstanding Research Award,” he has published articles in various professional journals including Party Politics, International Political Science Review, Journal of Election Studies (Chinese), and so forth. Currently, he is conducting a multi-year project on voting behavior, public opinion, and public policies in Taiwan. The main focus of this project is to examine the quality of Taiwan’s young democracy. Specifically, this project investigates the extent to which public policies respond to public opinion.  

This is a CDDRL's Special Research Seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program.

Chang-Ling Huang is an associate professor of political science at the National Taiwan University. She received her Ph. D. from the University of Chicago. Her research interests are gender politics and labor politics. She has published in various journals including Developing Economies, Anthropology of Work Review, American Journal of Public Health and Issues & Studies. Her current research project is a comparative study on state feminism in South Korea and Taiwan. She examines how the newly democratized states in these two countries have been actively promoting gender equality.

Professor Huang received the Outstanding Teaching Award in 2007 at the National Taiwan University. In addition to her academic career, since 2000 she has been a board member of the Awakening Foundation, the earliest established feminist organization in post-war Taiwan. Between 2004 and 2007, she was the president of the foundation. She has also been a civilian member of various government committees and commissions in Taiwan.

Professor Huang is a visiting scholar at Stanford's Political Science Department in the academic year of 2007-2008.

This is a CDDRL's Special Research Seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program. In this seminar, Dr. Szu-chien Hsu will explore whether "democracy" is really perceived differently in today's China in comparison with in the West. And if there is different perception, what are the implications for China's prospect of democratic reform?

Dr. Szu-chien Hsu is an Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica. Dr. Hsu's research interests include China's political reform, China's "developmental state" in high-tech economic sectors, and cross-strait relations. On China's political reform, Dr. Hsu is analyzing how the Hu-Wen administration conducts reforms on political institutions as an adaptation of the authoritarian regime. The analysis focuses on how the intrinsic institutional principles of the party-state condition and the path and scope of Hu's political reform. Szu-chien Hsu earned his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in the City of New York in 1997.

**Paper is available upon request.**

This is a CDDRL's Special Event within our Democracy in Taiwan Program.

Dr. Jaushieh Joseph Wu arrived in Washington, D.C. on April 15, 2007 to assume his responsibilities as Taiwan's chief representative to the United States.

Representative Wu began his government career in 2002 as Deputy Secretary-General to President Chen Shui-bian, a position he held until May 2004. From 2004 to April 2007, Representative Wu was the chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, a ministry-level organization that coordinates and implements Taiwan's policies toward the People's Republic of China.

Prior to his government career, Representative Wu held a number of academic positions at his alma mater, National Chengchi University, including the chairmanship of the First Division of the Institute of International Relations, an adjunct research fellowship at the Election Study Center and an adjunct professorship in the Department of Political Science.

Dr. Wu received his undergraduate education at National Chengchi University in Taipei. He did his graduate work in political science at the University of Missouri in St. Louis in 1982, obtaining a master's degree in Political Science, followed by a Ph. D. in the same field from Ohio State University in 1989. His areas of specialization include Taiwan's political development, cross-strait relations, international relations, and Middle East politics. Among Dr. Wu's academic publications, he has authored Taiwan's Democratization: Forces Behind the New Momentum (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1995), and edited Divided Nations: The Experience of Germany, Korea, and China (Taipei, Institute of International Relations, 1995) and China Rising: Implications of Economic and Military Growth of the PRC (Taipei, Institute of International Relations, 2001).