Reevaluating the Taiwanese Democracy Movement: A Comparative Analysis of Opposition Organizations under Japanese and KMT Rule

This article reevaluates the first phase of Taiwan's democratization process (1914-1986) by exploring the similarities and differences between oppositional political organizations under Japanese and Kuomintang (KMT) rule. Employing a parallel structure, the article compares two distinct periods of time, 1914-1937 and 1977-1986. Including the Japanese colonial era in the evaluation of Taiwan's democratization process makes it possible to examine long-overlooked issues in Taiwan's political development such as the question of continuity and disjuncture. The author argues that the Japanese colonial era should be recognized as the starting point of Taiwanese political activities and the era of KMT one-party rule that followed as a re-colonization of Taiwan (lasting from 1947 until the early 1980s). The author's analysis reveals that (1) Taiwanese political opposition during both eras originated within rather than outside repressive political frameworks and that moderate opposition organizations emerged as the best possible reaction given those circumstances; (2) domestic organizations had a greater impact on the Taiwanese polity and society than those in exile; and (3) peaceful approaches were an important alternative to revolutionary movements. The author recounts the story of Taiwan's democratization process (until 1986) through the careers of two long-neglected moderate political activists, Lin Xiantang (1881-1956) and Kang Ningxiang (1938-).     

Notes on Contributors

In the 1990s, several public corruption scandals were uncovered in Sweden. This article focuses specifically on local corruption, and our purpose is to examine whether a case can be made that problems of public corruption in Swedish municipalities have increased. By applying instruments from the institutional rational choice framework, we reach the conclusion that there are indeed reasons to suspect that retrenchment initiatives and organisational reforms over the last two decades, often labelled ‘new public management’, have increased the risk of corruption. Although hard empirical data do not yet exist, the suspicion that public corruption in Swedish municipalities may have become an increasing problem cannot be disregarded. Hence, we conclude by calling for further empirical research in this field.     

The German Presidency and the EU's Constitutional Malaise

The “pause for thought” decreed by the heads of state and government for themselves and their citizens after the voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe has been extended for at least another year. By the end of 2008, decisions will have to be taken on how to continue the reform process, yet a concrete strategy for implementing the Constitutional Treaty or an alternative treaty still appears out of reach. Before even beginning to agree on how to move forward, all 27 European Union member states will have to state clearly what goals they are pursuing in the process of institutional reform (a process which all sides agree is necessary) and what steps they believe are required for achieving these goals. In this context, clear statements on the importance of the Treaty and its fate are needed. Consensus on these issues among all 27 member states is unlikely to be achieved. In order to foster a constructive discussion, the German EU Presidency could move member states to agree on shared criteria for assessing the reform proposals that are on the table, and on the options for resolving the constitutional crisis.     

The Return of ‘Social Europe’: Ideas and Positions of German Parties towards the Future of European Integration

Politics in Eastern Europe. By George Schöpflin. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. £12.99 pb.

Eastern Europe since 1945. By Geoffrey Swain and Nigel Swain. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1993. £10 pb.

Revolution in East‐Central Europe. The Rise and Fall of Communism and the Cold War. By David S. Mason. Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford: Westview Press, 1992. £9.50 pb.

Surge to Freedom: The End of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe. By J.F. Brown. Twickenham: Adamantine Press, 1991. £18.40 pb.

The New Democracies in Eastern Europe. Party Systems and Political Cleavages. Edited by Sten Berglund and Jan Åke Dellenbrant. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1991. £39.95 hb.

Developments in Eastern European Politics. Edited by Stephen White, Judy Batt and Paul G. Lewis. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1993. £11.99 pb.     

How to change other people's institutions: discursive entrepreneurship and the boundary object of competition/competitiveness in the German banking sector

Abstract

The paper explores recent public debates about the structure of the financial system in Germany. It pays particular attention to their symbolic-strategic dimension, that is, to attempts by several institutional entrepreneurs to reformulate the criteria of organizational legitimacy, concentrating on the sense-making and legitimization processes involved in institutional persistence or change. The paper discourse-analyses a campaign by institutional entrepreneurs – mainly representatives of commercial banks – who attempted to homogenize the criteria of organizational legitimacy in the German banking sector by questioning the fundamentals of the three-pillar system and the non-commercial banks. Institutional entrepreneurs are understood as discursive entrepreneurs whose actions refer to institutionalized generalizations of value. In the case of the financial sector in Germany, it was the generalized value of competition/competitiveness that served as a discursive device to legitimize the attempts of commercial banks to alter the institutional structure.     

Ist Europa ?demokratief?hig“?

Das sogenannte Demokratiedefizit der EU wird gemeinhin auf drei Arten reflektiert. Intergouvernementalisten bestreiten es, den Anh?ngern eines organischen Nationenbegriffs fehlt die soziale Legitimation, schlie?lich erkennen einige Politikwissenschaftler in den Euro-Netzwerken eine der Transnationalit?t angemessene Form deliberativer Demokratie. Die drei Reflektionsweisen werden einem normativen Verst?ndnis von demokratischem Konstitutionalismus gegenüber gestellt, dessen Grundidee im Gesellschaftsvertrag einer freien Bürgergesellschaft besteht. Im Unterschied zu institutionellen Antworten auf das Demokratiedefizit, die die Identifikation mit Europa den inklusiven und aggregierenden Eigenschaften von Institutionen zusprechen, wird die Notwendigkeit einer positiven Legitimation der Bestandsgründe der EU für eine Verfassungsgebung hervorgehoben. Als entscheidende Implikation einer Konstitutionalisierung der EU stellt sich die Komplementarit?t der nationalen Souver?nit?ten und der Euro-Souver?nit?t heraus. Der Aufsatz pl?diert für einen konstitutionalistischen Prozess, der die Gemeinsamkeiten im Verfassungstelos der nationalstaatlichen Verfassungen politisiert.     

An inter-laboratory study of DNA-based identity,parentage and species testing in animal forensic genetics

The probative value of animal forensic genetic evidence relies on laboratory accuracy and reliability. Inter-laboratory comparisons allow laboratories to evaluate their performance on specific tests and analyses and to continue to monitor their output. The International Society for Animal Genetics (ISAG) administered animal forensic comparison tests (AFCTs) in 2016 and 2018 to assess the limitations and capabilities of laboratories offering forensic identification, parentage and species determination services. The AFCTs revealed that analyses of low DNA template concentrations (≤300 pg/µL) constitute a significant challenge that has prevented many laboratories from reporting correct identification and parentage results. Moreover, a lack of familiarity with species testing protocols, interpretation guidelines and representative databases prevented over a quarter of the participating laboratories from submitting correct species determination results. Several laboratories showed improvement in their genotyping accuracy over time. However, the use of forensically validated standards, such as a standard forensic short tandem repeat (STR) kit, preferably with an allelic ladder, and stricter guidelines for STR typing, may have prevented some common issues from occurring, such as genotyping inaccuracies, missing data, elevated stutter products and loading errors. The AFCTs underscore the importance of conducting routine forensic comparison tests to allow laboratories to compare results from each other. Laboratories should keep improving their scientific and technical capabilities and continuously evaluate their personnel’s proficiency in critical techniques such as low copy number (LCN) analysis and species testing. Although this is the first time that the ISAG has conducted comparison tests for forensic testing, findings from these AFCTs may serve as the foundation for continuous improvements of the overall quality of animal forensic genetic testing.     

Imaginäre Grenzen. Zur Entstehung impliziter Kollektivität in EU-Europa

Drawing on a practice-theoretical approach inspired by the notion of the social imaginary, imaginary borders in the European Union are conceptualized as the public emergence, maintenance and modification of interpretations about European borders through practices of circulation of symbols, commodities, and people. The construction of borders in the EU is thus neither located on the attitudinal level nor conceived of as the deliberate construction of meaning, but as the unintended emergence of the border as a meaningful category from taken-for-granted practices carrying their own meaning. Focusing on twin towns’ activities in the European Union as a paradigmatic location for the articulation of political-cultural understandings of the EU, it is argued that these articulations are not only embedded within economic and social circuits, but in the first place emerge from them as taken-for-granted and imaginary meanings of what the EU as a polity is and where its borders are. Methodologically, this calls for an understanding of the relationship between imaginary political collectivity and its economic, social and cultural channels of circulation which is not conceived as a text-context-relation but as one of mutual imaginary constitution.