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Abstraction Vol.52, No.3

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Abstraction Vol.52, No.3

Governance Research. Part I. The Emergence

Introduction
Yi-Tung Chang (Assistant Professor, Department of Social Development, National Pingtung University)

Special Issue Article
1. A Study on the Service Networks of Typhoon Morakot Post-Disaster Reconstruction in the South Taiwan: A Governance Approach to Disaster
Jen-Jen Lin (Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Fu Jen University)
Wan-I Lin (Professor, Department of Social Work, National Taiwan University)

2.Vulnerable Culture of Info-technological Risk Governance: Examining the Institutional Ignorance to Electronization of Medical Records
Kuei-Tien Chou (Professor, Graduate Institute of National Development, National Taiwan University)
Hsin-Chih Chen (Master, Graduate Institute of National Development, National Taiwan University)

3. Executive Power Operation and Local Governance: Case Studies of Energy Issues in Taiwan and in Romania
Chun-Hao Chang (Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Tunghai University)

4. Governing EJ: Reading the First Environmental Justice Lawsuit Self-referentially
Chih-Tung Huang (Assistant Professor, Department of Public Administration, National Open University)

5. The Conflict of Developing Kinmen National Park: Perspective of Network Management
Hen-Chin Chen (Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, National Taipei University)
Chia-Chi Chang (Master, Department of Public Administration and Policy, National Taipei University)
  
Research Note
6. Thinking About the Evolution of Cultural Governance and the Transformation of Cultural Laws
Huang-Ding Liao (Lawyer; Secretary General, Taiwan Cultural Law Association)

☆ Thought and Words  https://www.facebook.com/taw1963  




Special Issue Article

A Study on the Service Networks of Typhoon Morakot Post-Disaster Reconstruction in the South Taiwan: A Governance Approach to Disaster
Jen-Jen Lin (Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Fu Jen University)
Wan-I Lin (Professor, Department of Social Work, National Taiwan University)

In 2009 Typhoon Morakot caused severe damage to the southern part of Taiwan and relocated people were mostly indigenous people. Therefore significant cultural issues among different ethnic groups have been highlighted in the post-disaster reconstruction process. The purpose of this paper is to address the problem of services networks in the approach of disaster governance. The results come from a study of the reconstruction process in the affected area, Kaohsiung City and Ping Tung County. In the paper, it is examined the structure of service networks, including administrative arrangements, service networks between NGOs and traditional authority in affected village. This research is designed in particular to deepen our understanding as to how ethnic minorities, who already suffer from an inequality of the distribution of economic and political power, are excluded in the policy making process.

Keywords: Typhoon Morakot, disaster governance, reconstruction, indigenous people



Vulnerable Culture of Info-technological Risk Governance: Examining the Institutional Ignorance to Electronization of Medical Records
Kuei-Tien Chou (Professor, Graduate Institute of National Development, National Taiwan University)
Hsin-Chih Chen (Master, Graduate Institute of National Development, National Taiwan University)

This article argued a series of problems in the governmental decision-making and governing pattern. Through sorting anti-informational risk movements and divulgence of medical records over the years, we featured the systemic risk affect the governing problems of electronization of medical records (EMR). We tried to analyze a decision-making pattern continued linear risk assessment and how it will lead to public ignorance on EMR. From results of several public information risk perception surveys, the publics worried about their data leaking or misusing, but fell into the myth of cost-efficiency analysis easily. Moreover, if the systemic risks (OECD, 2003) keep deepening, it will make the whole society more vulnerable and cause the governing transformation for newly technology facing serious struggles.
The problem here is a social system hidden and delaying risk, formed by the authoritative expert politics, the closed elite decision-making pattern and the regulative culture, incapable of responding the societal requirements. Hence, the social vulnerability increases more and more, even higher than western society’s to respond newly technological impacts.

Keywords: institutional ignorance, societal ignorance, systemic risks, social vulnerability, dilemma of governance innovation



Executive Power Operation and Local Governance: Case Studies of Energy Issues in Taiwan and in Romania
Chun-Hao Chang (Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Tunghai University)

Taking the hotly debated energy issues in Taiwan and in Romania as its research focus, this paper attempts to analyze how executive powers from the central government intervene in local governance and politics. This paper firstly draws on governance theory to delineate the triangular power relation among the two executive heads, namely the president and the premier, and local grass-roots governance, in Taiwan and in Romania. It is argued that for Taiwan and Romania, as the unitary state that emphasizes decentralization, when it comes to issues concerning both national and local interests, the two-headed executive framework and executive-legislative interaction do influence the leading executive’s policy, as well as the central government’s instruction to the local government. Based on the cases of energy controversy in the two countries, this paper also suggests that the executive heads’ power relation and their political interests are main factors which put energy issues in the dilemma of promoting economic development or advocating environmental protection.

Keywords: two-headed executive power, governance, cohabitation, semi-presidentialism, energy issue



Governing EJ: Reading the First Environmental Justice Lawsuit Self-referentially
Chih-Tung Huang (Assistant Professor, Department of Public Administration, National Open University)

This article adopts a Barnesian self-referential approach to analyzing the first environmental justice (EJ) lawsuit, Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management, Corp.(Bean). According to Barry Barnes, a society could be understood as a self-referring knowledge system and this system is made valid only because the knowledge carriers within it has shared some common knowledge. That means, a society is everything its members know about it, make reference to each other, and act in ways which (re-)confirm their original “knowing”. For example, a “leader” is a leader only to the extent that one's followers regard him/her as such, and treat him/her accordingly.
In this article, I argue that a similar self-referential nature can be found in Bean as well. That is, in coming to believe that Bean is somehow EJ-related, all Bean's social actors constitute the very context that makes Bean an EJ case. Seen from this angle, EJ loses its static connotations that it tends to have when conceived solely as a regime, and shows that it is itself socially constructed. If this analysis is correct, then EJ is nothing but how Bean's plaintiffs, defendants, lawyers, judges, and other social actors know about, believe in, and act on what it is. Since we are ourselves the context which makes EJ what it is, EJ is how we understand, treat, regard and measure it.

Keywords: environmental justice, distributive justice, self-referring, circular-definition



The Conflict of Developing Kinmen National Park: Perspective of Network Management
Hen-Chin Chen (Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, National Taipei University)
Chia-Chi Chang (Master, Department of Public Administration and Policy, National Taipei University)

With the increasing democratic consciousness, various policy stakeholders affect policy outcomes. Based on that concept, this paper tries to analyze the causes of conflict between local residents within the scope of the National Park, mainly focusing on the reason why the people against the objects of the development of National Park?
Since the establishment of Kinmen National Park, the interaction between Kinmen National Park and the local residents has increased, and by following the common norms and obligations, the form of policy network is formatting. However, facing the complexity problems, the cooperation collapsed.
Through the questionnaire of the people in the Kinmen National Park, this paper then applies logistic regression analysis and in-depth interview to understand the various factors. The results show that the local people do not identify themselves with the National Park: (i) residents lack proper understanding of the National Park and they are taking a step back from consensus building, (ii) the problems of uneven distribution of resources still exist, and (iii) the implementation of the regulations are too strict.

Keywords: Network Management, Kinmen National Park, Uncertainty, Conflict



Research Note

Thinking About the Evolution of Cultural Governance and the Transformation of Cultural Laws
Huang-Ding Liao (Lawyer; Secretary General, Taiwan Cultural Law Association)

This article is about the review and the reflection on Taiwan’s cultural laws after World War II to 2013. Thinking about the cultural laws to implement cultural governance. The laws are the symbols presenting the values and the spirits of the times. They are more the presentations of official values. From the critical viewpoint of cultural studies, the laws are exactly the important instruments and the means for the government. As the observation ant the description from Foucault, the laws are the presentations of the microcosmic power that based on the needs of the security and the governance of the country. From the viewpoint of cultural policy, the laws are one of the instruments that beneath the policies. That is the so-called “the policy-based legislation viewpoint.” However, under the specific cultural policy, it shows us how to achieve the policy purpose by the legislation of cultural laws.
Undertake historical times, the laws as the cultural symbols in different periods, see through the evolution of the thoughts of cultural governance and the transformation of cultural laws, and describes the trajectory of both the formal and the substantial transformation of cultural laws which responds to the evolution of the official thoughts on cultural governance.


Keywords: cultural governance, cultural laws, governmentality