Democratization and civilian control of the military in Taiwan

Democratization

Volumn 15, Issue 5, 2008, Pages 870-890

  Kuehn, David ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Civil military relations; Democratization; Military; Taiwan

Indexed keywords

EID: 56449091642     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: 1743890X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510340802362638     Document Type: Article

References (118)

1. Recent exceptions are M. Taylor Fravel, 'Towards Civilian Supremacy: Civil-Military Relations in Taiwan's Democratization', Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2002), pp. 57-84
2. and Wei-chin Lee, 'The Greening of the Brass: Taiwan's Civil-Military Relations since 2000', Asian Security, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2007), pp. 204-27.
3. For a concise overview of the general literature on politics in Taiwan see Shelley Rigger, 'Political Science and Taiwan's Domestic Politics: The State of the Field', Issues and Studies, Vol. 38, No. 14 (2003), pp. 49-92.
4. Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 250.
5. Richard H. Kohn, 'How Democracies Control the Military', The Journal of Democracy, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1997), p. 142.
6. Harold A. Trinkunas, Crafting Civilian Control of the Military in Venezuela (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), pp. 5-8.
7. Cf. Muthiah Alagappa, 'Investigating and Explaining Change: An Analytical Framework', in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), Coercion and Governance. The Declining Role of the Military in Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 33-4
8. Douglas Bland, 'Patterns in Liberal Democratic Civil-Military Relations', Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2001), pp. 532-5
9. David Pion-Berlin, 'Military Autonomy and Emerging Democracies in South America', Comparative Politics, Vol. 25, No. 1 (1992), p. 87.
10. I shall define a regime as civilian if the area of leadership selection is dominated by civilians and if the military is not able to control the public policy area. A civilian regime is labelled 'democratic' if the civilian authorities are chosen in free and fair elections. Cf. Felipe Agüero, Soldiers, Civilians, and Democracy: Post-Franco Spain in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 25.
11. This argument is based on two assumptions pertaining to the different preferences regarding civil- military relations in transition processes. First, civilian elites are interested in maintaining or expanding their political influence. Second, military elites are interested in maintaining or expanding their institutional autonomy. While the first assumption can be considered an axiomatic proposition, the latter is based on sound empirical evidence on the behaviour of bureaucratic organizations.
12. Cf. Wendy Hunter, 'Reason, Culture, or Structure? Assessing Civil-Military Dynamics in Brazil', in David Pion-Berlin (ed.), Civil-Military Relations in Latin America: New Analytical Perspectives (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 36-58.
13. Trinkunas (note 4), pp. 8-13
14. Peter D. Feaver, 'Civil-Military Relations', Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 2 (1999), pp. 211-41.
15. Alagappa (note 5)
16. Aurel Croissant, 'Riding the Tiger: Civilian Control and the Military in Democratizing Korea', Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2004), pp. 357-81.
17. Agüero (note 6), pp. 43-67.
18. For a general discussion of cohesion and its impact on the assertiveness of collective actors, see George Tsebelis, Veto Players. How Political Institutions Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 38-45.
19. Eric A. Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics: Military Coups and Government (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Halls, 1977)
20. Nicole Ball, 'The Military in Politics: Who Benefits and How', World Development, Vol. 9, No. 6 (1981), pp. 569-82
21. J. Samuel Fitch, The Armed Forces and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)
22. Agüero (note 6), pp. 28-40.
23. This encompasses the citizens' diffuse support of the basic norms and procedures of the political regime as well as the specific support based on its economic and political performance cf. David Easton, Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1965).
24. Agüero (note 6), pp. 28-40
25. Alagappa (note 5)
26. Samuel E. Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics (London: Pall Mall, 1962)
27. Marina Caparini, et al. (eds), Civil Society and the Security Sector: Concepts and Practices in New Democracies (Münster: LitVerlag, 2006)
28. Michael C. Desch, Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security Environment (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 1-21
29. Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).
30. For a comprehensive account of the military's role on the mainland, cf. Hsi-sheng Ch'i, Nationalist China at War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1982).
31. Hungdah Chiu, 'Constitutional Development in the Republic of China in Taiwan', in Steve Tsang (ed.), In the Shadow of China: Political Development in Taiwan since 1949 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993), pp. 17-47.
32. Brian G. Martin, 'The Relationship between the Kuomintang and the Military in Taiwan', in Gary Klintworth (ed.), Modern Taiwan in the 1990s (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1991), pp. 23-38.
33. The military representatives in the NSC were the Council secretary general, an active-duty general, the Minister of National Defence, and the Chief of General Staff, cf. David Shambaugh 'Taiwan's Security: Maintaining Deterrence Amid Political Accountability', The China Quarterly, No. 148 (1996), p. 1288.
34. Wen-cheng Lin and Cheng-yi Lin, 'National Defence and the Changing Security Environment', in Bruce J. Dickson and Chien-min Chao (eds), Assessing the Lee Teng-hui Legacy in Taiwan's Politics. Democratic Consolidation and External Relations (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2002), pp. 241-63.
35. Between 1949 and 1987 only three Ministers of National Defence were formally civilians. Each of them, however, had had important positions in the military prior to their appointment. A list of Taiwan's Ministers of National Defence can be found in Brian Hsu, 'Taiwan's Long Line of Defence Ministers', Taipei Times, 15 June 2000.
36. Ta-chi Liao, 'How Does A Rubber Stamp Become A Roaring Lion. The Transformation of Taiwan's Legislative Yuan's Role during the Process of Democratization (1950-2000)', Issues and Studies, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2003), pp. 31-79.
37. Michael D. Swaine, Taiwan's National Security, Defence Policy, and Weapons Procurement Processes (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999), p. 17.
38. Hung-mao Tien, The Great Transition: Political and Social Change in the Republic of China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), pp. 110-1.
39. Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley, 'Regime Transition and the Media in Taiwan', Democratization, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1998), pp. 108-9.
40. Martin (note 17), p. 27.
41. Teh-fu Huang, 'Elections and the Evolution of the Kuomintang', in Hung-mao Tien (ed.), Taiwan's Electoral Politics and Democratic Transition: Riding the Third Wave (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 105-36.
42. Lu-hsun Hung et al., 'The Evolution of the ROC's Military-societal Relations: From Militarized Society to Socialized Military', in Martin Edmonds and Michael M. Tsai (eds), Defending Taiwan: The Future of Taiwan's Defence Policy andMilitary Strategy (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), p. 184.
43. Hsiao-shih Cheng, Party-Military Relations in the PRC and Taiwan (Boulder: Westview, 1990), p. 128.
44. Tien, The Great Transition (note 23), p. 109.
45. Linda Chao and Ramon H. Myers, The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 21-70.
46. Tien, The Great Transition (note 23), p. 71.
47. Edwin Winckler, 'Taiwan Transition?', in Tun-jen Cheng and Stephan Haggard (eds), Political Change in Taiwan (London: Lynne Rienner, 1992), p. 235.
48. Arthur Shu-fan Ding and Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang, 'Taiwan's Military in the 21st Century: Redefinition and Reorganization', in Larry M. Wortzel (ed.) The Chinese Armed Forces in the 21st Century (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, 1999), pp. 253-88.
49. Hsu, 'Taiwan's Long Line of Defence Ministers' (note 20).
50. Lin and Lin (note 19), p. 257.
51. Ministry of National Defence, ROC, National Defence Report 2006, http://report.mnd.gov.tw/95/.
52. Michael S. Chase, 'Defence Reform in Taiwan. Problems and Prospects', Asian Survey, Vol. 45, No. 3 (2005), p. 368.
53. Hung et al. (note 27), p. 192.
54. Michael D. Swaine, 'Taiwan's Defence Reforms and Military Modernization Program: Objectives, Achievements, and Obstacles', in Nancy Bernkopf Tucker (ed.), Dangerous Strait (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), pp. 105-6.
55. Ibid.; Jimmy Chuang, 'Newsmakers: Ex-pilot to Lead Military', Taipei Times, 19 May 2007.
56. DennyRoy, Taiwan's Threat Perceptions: The EnemyWithin (Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2003), http://www.apcss.org/ Publications/Occasional%20Papers/OPTaiwanThreat.pdf.
57. Hung et al. (note 27), p. 188.
58. Ding and Huang (note 33), p. 257.
59. John F. Copper, Taiwan's Mid-1990s Elections: Taking the Final Steps to Democracy (Westport: Praeger, 1998)
60. Republic of China Legislative Yuan, Lifa Yuan Weiyuan Mingdan (Members of the Legislative Yuan), http://npl.ly.gov.tw/do/www/ commissioner?act=exp, 28 June 2006
61. Republic of China Executive Yuan, Taiwan Nianjian (Taiwan Yearbook), various volumes.
62. In his 'flexible diplomacy', Lee combined attempts to strengthen Taiwan's international position with formal adherence to the 'One China' principle. His critics argued that Lee would clandestinely foster Taiwan's independence from mainland China, cf. Denny Roy, Taiwan. A Political History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 212-4.
63. Chin-chiang Su and Ming-shih Shen, 'Taiwan's Political Warfare System and Civil-Military Relations: Evolution and Prospect', Taiwan Defence Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2001), pp. 50-1
64. Brian Hsu, 'Military Throws Away Old Election Role', Taipei Times, 25 November 2002.
65. Chih-cheng Lo, 'Taiwan: The Remaining Challenges', in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia (Stanford: Standford University Press, 2001), p. 153.
66. Ibid. As opposed to the Taiwanese born on the island, the term 'Mainlander' refers to those members of Taiwan's society who came to the island with the KMT after 1949. Large parts of this group shared a common ideological outlook and the goal of eventual reunification with the mainland. Cf. Chi-lin Yang, Military Politics in the Transition to Democracy: Changing Civil-Military Relations in the Republic of China (Taiwan), 1949-1994 (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1996), pp. 234-51.
67. Wu Yu-Shan, 'Taiwan in 2000. Managing the Aftershocks from Power Transfer', Asian Survey, Vol. 41, No. 1 (2001), pp. 45-6.
68. Su and Shen (note 46), p. 52.
69. Chao-yung Hsueh 'National Identity and Conflicting Loyalty and Obedience in the ROC Armed Forces', Issues and Studies, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2003), pp. 145-62.
70. China Post, 16 November 2004
71. Taipei Times, 22 December 2005.
72. Jimmy Chuang, 'New Rule Would Bar MND Personnel from Politics', Taipei Times, 10 November 2006.
73. Hsueh (note 51), p. 48.
74. Su and Shen (note 46); Monte Bullard, The Soldier and the Citizen: The Role of the Military in Taiwan's Development(Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1997).
75. Hung-mao Tien, 'Taiwan's Transformation', in Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, Yun-han Chu, and Hung-mao Tien (eds), Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies. Regional Challenges (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 126.
76. Lin and Lin (note 19), p. 241.
77. Lee (note 1), pp. 209-13.
78. Ching-pu Chen, 'Defence Policy-Making and Civilian Roles', Taiwan Defence Affairs, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2003), pp. 182-209.
79. Shambaugh (note 18), p. 1292.
80. Lee (note 1), pp. 210-21.
81. Ministry of National Defence, ROC, National Defence Report 2006.
82. Chin-ming Sun, 'Taiwan: Toward a Higher Degree of Military Professionalism', in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.). Military Professionalism in Asia (Honolulu: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), pp. 68-9
83. Jang-ruey Tzeng, 'Revolutionary Trends in the ROC's Professional Military Education', in Martin Edmonds and Michael M. Tsai (eds), Defending Taiwan. The Future of Taiwan's Defence Policy and Military Strategy (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp. 220-2.
84. The term 'Leader' originally referred to the supreme role of President Chiang Kai-shek, to whom the officers had pledged their loyalty during Chiang's rule. The Three Principles of the people (Nationalism, Democracy, Peoples' Welfare) had been developed by the founder of the KMT, Sun Yat-sen, and were the ideological foundation of the KMT regime. Cf. Taiwan News, 16 May 2007.
85. Peter R. Moody, Jr., Political Change on Taiwan: A Study of Ruling Party Adaptability (London: Praeger, 1992), p. 59.
86. Swaine, Taiwan's National Security, Defence Policy, and Weapons Procurement Processes (note 22), pp. 57-9.
87. Richard A. Bitzinger, 'The Eclipse of Taiwan's Defence Industry and Growing Dependencies on the United States for Advanced Armaments: Implications for US-Taiwan-Chinese Relations', Issues and Studies, Vol. 38, No.1 (2002), p. 117
88. Ta-chen Cheng, 'The Establishment of Taiwan's Bureau of Armament and Acquisition', Taiwan Defence Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2003), pp. 43-5.
89. The military was a shareholder in the highly popular China Television System; possessed 59 radio stations, nine publishing companies, and 30 printing companies; and published two newspapers and 93 periodicals, cf. Fravel (note 1), p. 74
90. Taiwan News, 4 January 2006.
91. Do Chull Shin and Jason Wells, 'Is Democracy the Only Game in Town?', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16, No. 2 (2005), p. 91.
92. Lo (note 47), pp. 151-2.
93. Swaine, Taiwan's Defence Reforms' (note 39), p. 150.
94. Yun Fan, 'Taiwan: No Civil Society, No Democracy', in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), Civil Society and Political Change in Asia. Expanding and Contracting Democratic Space (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 171.
95. Ding (note 50), pp. 7-9.
96. This pattern was evident during the whole period of democratic transition and consolidation. Examples are the missile crisis of 1995-1996, Beijing's military threats during the 2000 presidential elections as well as the codification of the use of 'non-peaceful means' to deter any unilateral declaration of Taiwan's independence in the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, cf. Michael D. Swaine and James C. Mulvenon, Taiwan's Foreign and Defence Policies: Features and Determinants, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), pp. 59-60
97. Wu, 'Taiwan in 2000' (note 49).
98. The available empirical data does not allow for a comprehensive analysis of the military side's perception of the cross-strait tensions during the 1990s. However, anecdotic evidence suggests that inside the military there were no attempts to talk up a potential conflict with mainland China while the civilian pro-independence actors were underscoring the differences across the Taiwan Strait and striving to build a genuine Taiwanese national identity, cf. Alan M. Wachmann, Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization, (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1994)
99. John Fu-sheng Hsieh. 'Ethnicity, National Identity, and Domestic Politics in Taiwan', Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 40, Nos 1-2 (2005), pp. 13-28.
100. Cf. Shelley Rigger, 'Taiwan's Best-Case Democratization', Orbis, Vol. 48, No. 2 (2004), pp. 285-92.
101. Michael S. Chase, 'US-Taiwan Security Cooperation. Enhancing an Unofficial Relationship', in Nancy Bernkopf Tucker (ed.), Dangerous Strait (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), p. 177.
102. Hung et al. (note 27), p. 190.
103. See for instance Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino (eds), Assessing the Quality of Democracy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).
104. Wolfgang Merkel, 'Embedded and Defective Democracies', Democratization, Vol. 11, No. 5 (2004), pp. 33-58.
105. Andrew Cottey, Timothy Edmunds, and Anthony Forster, 'The Second Generation Problematic: Rethinking Democracy and Civil-Military Relations', Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2002), pp. 31-56.
106. Chase, 'Defence Reform in Taiwan (note 37), p. 373.
107. Peter D. Feaver, Armed Servants. Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003)
108. Wendy Hunter, 'Reason, Culture, or Structure?: Assessing Civil-Military Dynamics in Brazil', in David Pion-Berlin (ed.), Civil-Military Relations in Latin America. New Analytical Perspectives (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 36-58
109. Trinkunas (note 4).
110. Andrew J. Bacevich, 'Absent History: A Comment on Dauber, Desch, and Feaver', Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 24, No. 3 (1998), p. 452.
111. Cf. Stepan (note 14), pp. 128-45
112. Muthiah Alagappa, 'Asian Civil-Military Relations: Key Developments, Explanations, and Trajectories', in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), Coercion and Governance. The Declining Role of the Military in Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 474-86.
113. Jonathan Adams, 'Taiwan Lowers Its Defences', Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 170, No. 3 (2007), pp. 29-32.
114. Lee (note 1), pp. 213-4.
115. Cf. Glenda M. Gloria, We Were Soldiers: Military Men in Politics and the Bureaucracy (Quezon City: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2003)
116. Michael Malley, 'Democratization and the Challenge of Defence Reform in Indonesia', in Thomas Bruneau and Harold Trinkunas (eds), The Global Politics of Defence Reform (New York: Palgrave McMillan, forthcoming)
117. Pathamanand Ukrist, 'A Different Coup d'Etat?', Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2008), pp. 124-42.
118. Richard C. Bush, 'Democratic Consolidation in Taiwan: Inspired Political Reform Needs Effective Leadership', The China Post, 17 December 2007.