Taiwan’s Maturing Democracy
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On May 14, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies (CNAPS) at Brookings and the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University hosted a seminar analyzing progress and challenges in the consolidation of Taiwan’s democratization and reforms. While the presidential and legislative elections held on January 14 were interpreted by many as proof that Taiwan’s democratic system—including its government and society—has matured since the first transition of political power in 2000, both big-picture and day-to-day challenges to effective democratic governance remain.
The seminar featured leading practitioners and political scientists from Taiwan and the United States. Panelists examined reforms that have been enacted in Taiwan over the past decade, and analyzed their impact on the functions of government agencies, political parties, and other non-governmental organizations. They also discussed how reform and consolidation are affecting policy and public perception of the system.
Participants
9:00 AM — Panel 1: Government
David Brown, Adjunct Professor, Paul H, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Nigel N.T. Li, Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of Law, Soochow University
Adjunct Professor, Graduate Institute of Political Science, National Taiwan University
Da-Chi Liao, Professor of Political Science, National Sun Yat-sen University
Jiunn-rong Yeh, Professor, College of Law, National Taiwan University
11:00 AM — Panel 2: Politics and Society
John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, Professor of Political Science, University of South Carolina
Shelley Rigger, Brown Professor of East Asian Politics Chair, Department of Political Science, Davidson College
Erich Che-wei Shih, News Anchor and Senior Producer, CTi Television
Eric Chen-hua Yu, Assistant Professor of Political Science, National Chengchi University
12:45 PM — Lunch
1:45 PM — Panel 3: Implications of Democratic Consolidation
Richard C. Bush III, Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies
Larry Diamond, Professor of Political Science; Director, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Stanford University
Alan Romberg, Distinguished Fellow and Director, East Asia Program, The Stimson Center
Ho Szu-yin, Professor, Department of Political Science, National Chengchi University
Audio recordings of the event are available online at the Brookings website here:
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Larry Diamond
CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
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ldiamond@stanford.edu
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.
Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad. A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).
During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.
Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.
Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.
Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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The Next Phase of China’s Health System Reforms
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In spring 2009, China’s leadership announced ambitious national health reforms. Have the five stated goals of the first three years of reform been met? What policies will China pursue in the next phase? As a prominent advisor to China's State Council Health Reform Office, Liu will discuss progress and prospects for reforms—especially the role of the private sector within the health system—within the context of China’s 2012 leadership transition.
Gordon Liu is a professor of economics at Peking University's (PKU) Guanghua School of Management, and director of PKU's China Center for Health Economic Research. Previously, he served as a tenured associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2000–2006), and as an assistant professor at the University of Southern California (1994–2000).
Liu's primary research interests include health and development economics, health policy and reform, and pharmaceutical economics. His current research is funded by the State Council Health Reform Office, the National Science Foundation, UNICEF, and the China Medical Board.
Liu currently serves on the State Council Health Reform Advisory Commission, and the Expert Panel for the State Ministry of Human Resource and Social Security. He serves as co-editor for the journal Value in Health, and as editor-in-chief for China Journal of Pharmaceutical Economics. He sits on the editorial boards for the European Health Economic Review, Global Handbook for Health Economics, and Chinese Journal of Health Economics.
He received his PhD in Economics from the City University of New York Graduate School while working as a graduate research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research under the supervision of Michael Grossman (1986–1991). He obtained post-doctoral training at Harvard University with William Hsiao (1992–1993). Liu has served as the president for the Chinese Economists Society, and chair for the Asian Consortium for the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research.
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Gordon Liu
Professor of Economics
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Peking University Guanghua School of Management
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China provides universal health insurance at a fraction of the cost
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China’s demographic landscape is rapidly changing, and the government has responded by launching ambitious social and health service reforms to meet the changing needs of the country’s 1.3 billion people. This week, officials approved a five-year plan to develop a comprehensive nationwide social security network.
Karen Eggleston, the Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) director and a Stanford Health Policy fellow, discusses the success of China’s health care reforms—including its recently established universal health care system—and the long road still ahead.
Why is the overall health and wellbeing of China’s population important globally?
There are many reasons why the health of China’s citizens matters within a larger global context. On the most basic level, China represents almost 20 percent of humanity. But it is also a major player in the world economy and it depends on having a healthy workforce, especially now that its population is aging more. The government’s ability to meet the needs of its underserved citizens contributes to a more productive and stable China, and works towards closing the huge gaps we see in human wellbeing across the world.
China also potentially offers a model for other developing countries, such as India, that may want to figure out how to make universal health coverage work at a tenth of the income of most of the countries that have put it into place before.
What are some of the biggest changes in China’s health care system since 1949?
One of the most significant changes is that China has achieved very basic universal health insurance coverage in a relatively short period of time.
Throughout the Mao period (1949–1978) there was a health care system linked to the centrally planned economy, which provided a basic level of coverage via government providers with a lot of regional variation. When economic reform came in 1980, large parts of the system—particularly financing for insurance—collapsed. The majority of China’s citizens were uninsured during the past few decades of very rapid social and economic development.
China’s overall population is changing quite dramatically, which means it has different health care needs, such as treating chronic disease and caring for an increasingly elderly population. The central government is trying to establish a system of accessible primary care—a concept that China’s barefoot doctors helped to pioneer but that fell into disarray—and health services that fit these new needs.
How does China’s basic health care system work? Are there segments of the population still not receiving adequate coverage and care?
China has had a system where people can select their own doctors. Patients usually want to go to clinics attached to the highest-reputation hospitals, but of course, when you are not insured you almost always by default go to where you can afford the care. “It is difficult to see the doctor, and it is expensive” has been the lament of patients in China, so an explicit goal of the health care reforms has been to address this.
The term “universal coverage” has different definitions. China initially put in place a form of insurance that only covers 20 or 30 percent of medical costs for the previously uninsured population, especially in rural areas. Benefits have expanded, but remain limited. As with the previous system, disparities in coverage still exist across the population. China not only has a huge population with huge economic differences, but within that there is a large migrant worker population. It is a challenge to figure out how to cover these citizens and how to provide them with access to better care. The government is quite aware there are segments of the population not receiving equal coverage, and it continues to strive to resolve the issue.
What are the greatest innovations in China’s health care system in recent years?
One of the most remarkable things China has achieved is really its new health insurance system. Even if the current coverage is not particularly generous it is nearly universal, and mechanisms are put in place each year to provide more generous coverage. China is also working on strengthening its primary care and population health services, infusing a huge sum of government money into these efforts. It is the only developing country of its per-capita income that has achieved such results so far.
Interestingly, a lot of people assume China achieved its universal coverage by mandate, while in fact the central government did so by subsidizing the cost for local governments and individuals. This reduces the burden, for example, on poorer rural governments and residents, and is one innovative way China is trying to eliminate the disparity in access to care.
Eggleston has recently published a working paper on China’s health care reforms since the Mao era on the AHPP website, as well as an article in the Milken Institute Review.
Gordon Liu, a Chinese government advisor on health care and the executive director of Peking University’s Health Economics and Management Institute, spoke at Stanford on May 29 on the future of China’s health care system.
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A disabled woman from Henan writes a poetic plea for money explaining the circumstances of her disability, her family's difficulties in paying for treatment, and their subsequent debt, Shanghai, August 2009.
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Modes of Governance in the Chinese Bureaucracy: A 'Control Rights' Theory
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Abstract:
The Chinese bureaucracy presents a set of anomalies that need to be explained: In the presence of a strong central authority, why do we observe widespread collusive behaviors at the local level? Why are violations and problems uncovered in the inspection processes are left unaddressed? Why is performance evaluation conducted by the higher authorities is subsequently ignored by the local authorities? We develop a theoretical model on authority relationships in the Chinese bureaucracy by conceptualizing the allocation of control rights in goal setting, inspection and incentive provision among the principal, supervisor and agent. Variations in the allocation of control rights give rise to different modes of governance and entail distinct behavioral implications among the parties involved. The proposed model provides a unified framework and a set of analytical concepts to examine different governance structures, varying authority relationships, and behavioral patterns in the Chinese bureaucracy. We illustrate the proposed model in a case study of authority relationships and the ensuing behavioral patterns in the environmental protection arena over a 5-year policy cycle.
About the speaker:
Xueguang Zhou is the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a professor of sociology, and a Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies senior fellow. His main area of research is on institutional changes in contemporary Chinese society, focusing on Chinese organizations and management, social inequality, and state-society relationships. Zhou's research topics are related to the making of markets, village elections, and local government behaviors. His recent publications examine the role of bureaucracy in public goods provision in rural China (Modern China, 2011); interactions among peasants, markets, and capital (China Quarterly, 2011); access to financial resources in Chinese enterprises (Chinese Sociological Review, 2011, with Lulu Li); multiple logics in village elections (Social Sciences in China, 2010, with Ai Yun); and collusion among local governments in policy implementation (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2011, with Ai Yun and Lian Hong; and Modern China, 2010) .
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Xueguang Zhou
Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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xgzhou@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development
Professor of Sociology
Graduate Seminar Professor at the Stanford Center at Peking University, June and July of 2014
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Xueguang Zhou is the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a professor of sociology, and a Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies senior fellow. His main area of research is on institutional changes in contemporary Chinese society, focusing on Chinese organizations and management, social inequality, and state-society relationships.
One of Zhou's current research projects is a study of the rise of the bureaucratic state in China. He works with students and colleagues to conduct participatory observations of government behaviors in the areas of environmental regulation enforcement, in policy implementation, in bureaucratic bargaining, and in incentive designs. He also studies patterns of career mobility and personnel flow among different government offices to understand intra-organizational relationships in the Chinese bureaucracy.
Another ongoing project is an ethnographic study of rural governance in China. Zhou adopts a microscopic approach to understand how peasants, village cadres, and local governments encounter and search for solutions to emerging problems and challenges in their everyday lives, and how institutions are created, reinforced, altered, and recombined in response to these problems. Research topics are related to the making of markets, village elections, and local government behaviors.
His recent publications examine the role of bureaucracy in public goods provision in rural China (Modern China, 2011); interactions among peasants, markets, and capital (China Quarterly, 2011); access to financial resources in Chinese enterprises (Chinese Sociological Review, 2011, with Lulu Li); multiple logics in village elections (Social Sciences in China, 2010, with Ai Yun); and collusion among local governments in policy implementation (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2011, with Ai Yun and Lian Hong; and Modern China, 2010).
Before joining Stanford in 2006, Zhou taught at Cornell University, Duke University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is a guest professor at Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the People's University of China. Zhou received his Ph.D. in sociology from Stanford University in 1991.
The Institutional Foundations of the Chinese Bureaucratic State
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Francis Fukuyama
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Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy
Research Affiliate at The Europe Center
Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science
Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.
Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.
Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.
Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.
(October 2025)
Global Populisms
A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Economic revival, the Euro-zone, and alliance with US international policy at stake in the French presidential election
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Across France and the French overseas domains and territories, voters are going to the polls, and their level of dissatisfaction is surpassed only by the height of what is at stake for France, Europe, and US international policy.
The Europe Center invites the Stanford and area community to join us Friday, May 4th, for a roundtable discussion on the upcoming French elections. (Sign-up here [link]). Three analysts from different fields of expertise – Arthur Goldhammer, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, and Jimia Boutouba – will discuss the election and its wider context. The Europe Center is timing this public event for the eve of round 2, with much to analyze from round 1, and policy options to consider for the impending winner.
Round 1 (April 22) results:
- François Hollande: 28.6%
- Nicolas Sarkozy 27.2%
- Marine Le Pen 17.9%
- Jean-Luc Melenchon 11.1%
- François Bayrou 9.1%
- Five other candidates 6.1%
Speculation during the two-week interim period between round 1 and 2 will focus on the leader of the far-right Front National – Marine Le Pen, who took her party to its highest vote tally in modern memory. How will the two remaining candidates vie for these voters who were apparently preoccupied with a perceived threat from immigration, cultural dilution, and security? Especially in the wake of the recent tragic violence in Toulouse, candidate Sarkozy courted such far-right voters, but candidate Hollande vociferously chastised the tactic as capitalizing on the tragedy.
Available opinion surveys note widespread disenchantment with incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has put his personal stamp on Euro-zone rescue and recovery and alliance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but who has failed to deliver such reform, stability, or growth in France. President Sarkozy has also raised the profile of France and its international policy on the Afghan international peace-keeping force, as well as the Arab Spring and most recently international effort to enforce a cease fire in Syria.
French voters also express disappointment with Socialist candidate François Hollande, frequently labeling him and his party as vaguely center-right and having abandoned a clear commitment to the party’s traditional platform of equality and social justice.
Interest – and survey support – grew in the run-up to the first round of voting for the candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who brings a background as a teacher and self-identified Trotskyite, to lead the party Front de Gauche – a loose coalition of ex-Communists, environmental left, and the rough equivalent of U.S. “99%” movement.
What did not happen this year was to have an “alternative” candidates from what are seen as the edges of ideological spectrum can win enough votes to edge out Sarkozy or Hollande and survive to the second round – as happened in 2002 when Jean-Marie Le Pen (father of Marine) out-placed the Socialist Lionel Jospin, to make it to the second round, and effectively compel center-left Socialists to hand the election to Jacques Chirac.
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The French presidential election is organized to accommodate two rounds. The first round took place Sunday, April 22. Because no candidate won more than fifty percent of the vote, there will be a run-off election of the top two candidates, on Sunday, May 6.
Basic facts of the structure of the French Presidential election are at:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120420/API/1204200768?p=1&tc=pg
Latest blog entry by Arthur Goldhammer: http://artgoldhammer.blogspot.com/
Opinion poll results from the leading agency Ipsos Public Affairs are updated frequently at: http://www.ipsos.fr/presidentielle-2012/index.php
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