Causes of brain drain and solutions: The Taiwan experience

Over the years, Taiwan has experienced “brain drain”, as more than 80 percent of its students who completed their graduate study in the United States have failed to return. Instead, they have found their ways into the faculties of American colleges and universities or employment opportunities in various research organizations and industries. This article examines brain drain, its origin in Taiwan, and government response. One of the major findings of this study is that the elite emigration in Taiwan has been caused by a host of complex academic, social, economic, and personal factors. Second, Taiwan’s brain drain into the United States is primarily a case of “education and migration.” It is an outflow of college graduates, not an exodus of trained scientists and engineers; therefore, Taiwan’s manpower loss in the short run is not as serious as the case where mature and experienced scientists and professionals leave. Furthermore, whereas a large number of college graduates leave each year to study abroad, a much larger number of the graduating class does remain in Taiwan. To reverse Taiwan’s brain drain, the government of the Republic of China (ROC) has already implemented an ambitious program to recruit Taiwan’s highly trained talents from overseas. Taiwan’s successful experience could be emulated by other developing countries. Shirley L. Chang received her B.A. in Foreign Languages and Literature from National Taiwan University, Master of Library Science from Columbia University, and M.A. in Higher Education from The Pennsylvania State University. She is Chairman of the Department of Library Services and Catalog/Reference Librarian at Stevenson Library, Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA 17745.     

The chinese brain drain and policy options

Brain drain has become a growing problem in China’s overseas education, especially since the Tiananmen incident of June 1989. Many students have found it more difficult to adjust to the home environment. Some are afraid they would be punished for political reasons if they went home. Some use the issue as an opportunity to seek permanent overseas residence. Beijing is facing various difficulties in coping with the brain drain problem. Restrictions always anger students abroad. Family members often discourage students from returning. Incentives to attract students to return are inadequate. Most important, after Tiananmen Western governments refused to cooperate with Beijing and allowed Chinese students to stay. Concerned with the brain drain, Beijing is reconsidering its policy on foreign study. Of the policy alternatives, a continuation of the open policy appears to remain optimal, though some adjustments are necessary. In addition, several technical solutions to the brain drain problem are worth considering. Dr. Chang is professor of political science and director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Deng is a research associate of the Center. His most recent publication isChina’s Brain Drain Problem: Causes, Consequences and Policy Options, and he is the author of several articles included in edited books and scholarly journals.     

Social integration and suicide in South Korea

The increasing suicide rate in South Korea in recent decades was found to be associated with measures of social integration/regulation (birth and divorce rates).     

State-led violence in Ukraine’s 2004 elections and orange revolution

The Ukrainian opposition faced one of the greatest degrees of state-backed violence in the second wave of democratization of post-communist states with only Serbia experiencing similar cases of assassinations and repression of the youth Otpor NGO. In the 2004 Ukrainian elections the opposition maintained a strategy of non-violence over the longest protest period of 17 days but was prepared to use force if it had been attacked. The regime attempted to suppress the Orange Revolution using security forces. Covert and overt Russian external support was extensive and in the case of Ukraine and Georgia the European Union (EU) did not intervene with a membership offer that had the effect of emboldening the opposition in Central-Eastern Europe. This article surveys five state-backed violent strategies used in Ukraine’s 2004 elections: inciting regional and inter-ethnic conflict, assassinations, violence against the opposition, counter-revolution and use of the security forces. The article does not cover external Russian-backed violence in the 2004 elections unique to Ukraine that the author has covered elsewhere.     

The developmental state: Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan compared

The growth performances of the Israeli economy during the years 1948–1973 were excellent by any criteria, and are comparable to the “miraculous” performances of South Korea and Taiwan. Excellent economic performances in the three countries were accompanied by the presence of an autonomous and an interventionist state as well as by strategies of governed development (in the spheres of finance, investment, and international trade). The comparison is used, to shed new light on the Israeli political economy as well as on the replicability of the developmental state model across regions, cultures, and political regimes. First, by comparing the three countries and pointing to the similarities in the role and autonomy of the state, the article offers a different interpretation of the Israeli economy from that offered by both neoclassical and neomarxist interpretations of the Israeli political economy. Second, successful cases of develoment are rare in our world; this should make the study of the Israeli political economy a valuable case-study for the proponents of the developmental state model. By pointing out the similarities in the growth performances and the developmental strategies of Israel, Taiwan, and South Korea, as well as the dissimilarities in their political regimes, their cultural traditions, and their regional settings, this article further strengthens the arguments in favor of state-guided economic development in developing countries. David Levi-Faur is a lecturer of comparative public policy and business and politics at the University of Haifa. He was a visiting scholar at the L.S.E., University of California, Berkeley, the University of Utrecht, and the University of Amsterdam.     

Adapting to democracy: Societal mobilization and social policy in Taiwan and South Korea

Democratic transition and institutional change do not necessarily guarantee greater political inclusion, particularly when it comes to the policy influence of civil society groups. Rather, political inclusiveness requires strategic adaptation among societal actors. Actors need to seize upon opportunities endemic to political change. This article provides a comparative analysis of health care reform in democratizing Taiwan and South Korea, focusing on two social movement coalitions, the National Health Insurance Coalition in Taiwan and Korea's Health Solidarity. Both movement coalitions were critical in shaping welfare reform trajectories in Taiwan and South Korea during the late 1990s, despite having been shut out from earlier episodes of health care reform. I argue that these groups (1) strategically adjusted their mobilization strategies to fit specific political and policy contexts, (2) benefited from broad-based coalition building, and (3) effectively framed the issue of social welfare in ways that gained these movements ideational leverage, which was particularly significant given the marginal place of leftist ideas in the postwar East Asian developmental state model. Joseph Wong is assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He is the author ofHealthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea, published by Cornell University Press. Wong received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The author thanks Edward Friedman, Jay Krishnan, Ito Peng, Richard Sandbrook, Linda White, along with the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to Uyen Quach and Nina Mansoori for their research assistance.     

Organising development: Comparing the national systems of entrepreneurship in Sweden and South Korea

The dominant paradigms of economic development have created an artificial institutional division between spontaneous markets and instrumental states. Opposing policy agendas have evolved and remain entrenched. This article seeks to challenge both approaches by reconsidering the role of entrepreneurship in economic development. Adopting an evolutionary perspective, it argues that a national system of entrepreneurship provides an appropriate framework for combining the creative and destructive processes inherent in entrepreneurship with the institutional diversity characteristic of successful economic development. The article illustrates this argument by comparing the development experiences of Sweden and South Korea.     

Dilemmas and choices in educational policies: The case of South Korea and Taiwan

In the face of a similar challenge for economic development, South Korea and Taiwan differed greatly in their approaches to educational reform. South Korea permitted a rapid expansion in educational system, allowed the development of academic education, and pursued a relatively high tuition policy for higher education. In contrast, Taiwan controlled the growth of education, promoted vocational education, and maintained a relatively low tuition policy for higher education. Political dynamics, rather than economic efficiency considerations, explain the divergent choices in the educational reforms of these two countries. Tun-jen Cheng is associate professor of government, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 23187–8795. He has published extensively on politicl economy and democratic change in East Asian newly industrializing countries. He is currently working on institutional designs of Korean democracy.     

韩国保护弱势群体的主要做法和经验

韩国对弱势群体保护的发展历程 韩国将弱势群体称为"疏外阶层",其内涵与外延与我国大致相同,但侧重强调被社会主流阶层"疏远、冷落、排斥".其对弱势群体的保护经过了一个从无到有、从少到多、从局部到系统的发展历程.     

日、韩调整与东盟的关系

2006年,日韩两国都在对东盟外交进行新调整与定位的基础上,积极推动与东盟在各个领域的交往.政治往来平稳发展、经济合作深入推进、军事安全交流有所提升成为今年日韩与东盟关系发展的主基调.     

Introduction: Brain drain in East Asia

Editor’s Note: In the first issue ofStudies in Comparative International Development under my editorship, I indicated that special issues would be published from time to time. The first of these was volume 25 (spring) 1990, number 1, “On Measuring Democracy,” with Alex Inkeles as guest editor. We present a somewhat different grouping of articles in this issue, edited by Parris Chang. “Brain Drain in East Asia” considers this important contemporary developmental issue along the lines indicated in his introduction, Other thematic topics or groupings of articles are also being considered for future issues of SCID.     

Of miracles and models: The rise and decline of the developmental state in South Korea

This article argues that the South Korean economic 'miracle' was based on the ability of the state to implement a strongly developmental policy. The state was able to do so because, for a time, it was highly insulated from demands from social classes which might have diverted it from the objective of industrialisation. This insulation, or 'relative state autonomy', derived from an historical trajectory which left the state in an unusually dominant position in relation to these classes. Domestic dominance was one factor enabling the state to insert the South Korean economy into world markets in a more advantageous position than would otherwise have been possible. However, its very success in industrialising the country strengthened various class forces, whose demands and intrusion into politics undermined the autonomy of the state. With industrialisation, the state's freedom of manoeuvre was lessened. International influence only reinforced those class pressures inside South Korea. The overall effect was to force a retreat of the state and an end to a developmental policy.     

The Role of Non -Economic Drivers in Development Planning: The Case of South Korea and Turkey

ABSTRACT

The relationships between economic growth and planning strategies have been debated in different disciplines of social science. However, the emphasis has been more on structural and theoretical assumptions of planning and economics at the expense of other important non-economic and institutional factors that include social, cultural, political, and administrative dimensions. To explain the different approaches and outcomes of development planning, one needs to examine other factors that influence the nature of these plans and why they have been adopted. Using rigorous systematic and thematic review of government reports, academic publications and data from international organizations, this comparative study reveal the unique role non-economic factors play in countries’ development. It has been revealed that these factors not only influence the nature of planning strategies adopted by governments but also affect how these plans are implemented. Since South Korea and Turkey have achieved impressive economic growth over the last half a century, they have been selected as a case study to examine the role non-economic factors in their respective developments.     

NGOs as Incubator of Participative Democracy in South Korea: Political,Voluntary, and Policy Participation

Abstract

This article is designed to examine the roles of Non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) in South Korea as an incubator of participative democracy and to review the evolution of their relationship with governments. The study is comprised of four parts. First, related literature on NGOs will be examined from three different perspectives: state‐civil society perspective, voluntary social service perspective, and policy perspective. Second, this essay will survey emerging roles of NGOs in promoting organized citizen participation in the three areas: political participation, voluntary social service participation, and policy participation. Third, recent governments' institutional efforts to support NGOs will be reviewed briefly. Finally, this paper will conclude with the implications for the future of government‐NGOs relationship in policy‐making processes.