Neighborhood Governance in Urban Taiwan: Democratic Deepening in the Roots of the State

Benjamin Read will give a lecture on neighborhoods in urban Taiwan at Harvard University.

Neighborhood Governance in Urban Taiwan:
Democratic Deepening in the Roots of the State
Benjamin L. Read, University of California, Santa Cruz
Taiwan's system of neighborhood-level governance has origins in institutions of social control employed by both the Republican-era Kuomintang and the Japanese colonizers. In more recent times, its local agents have been known for buying votes on behalf of politicians and mobilizing constituents in exchange for patronage. Yet over the past 25 years, elections for the "borough wardens" (??) have become hotly contested, voter turnout has risen to remarkably high rates, and KMT dominance has given way to political pluralization. Neighborhood leaders of a new generation, with more women in their ranks than ever before, have taken on new roles and have different relationships with their communities, parties, and city governments compared to those of the older, often clan-based bosses. Drawing on ethnographic research, interviews, opinion surveys, public records, and other sources, Professor Read argues that the evolution of Taiwan's neighborhood organizations has deepened democratic practices at the grassroots level, even though they remain a highly statist institution.

Benjamin L. Read is an assistant professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His book Roots of the State: Neighborhood Organization and Social Networks in Beijing and Taipei is forthcoming from Stanford University Press. He previously edited a volume on state-sponsored local organizations around East and Southeast Asia, and he is working with two co-authors on a book about field research in political science. Professor Read has also published research on civil society organizations, particularly China's nascent homeowner associations. He earned his PhD in government at Harvard University in 2003.

Jointly sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Harvard-Yenching Insititute.
Reception to follow the lecture.
Location: CGIS South, Doris and Ted Lee Gathering Room (S030), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge