Political Dynasties and Democratization:
A Case Study of Taiwan

Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, Vol.8(3), 2024

The video presentation is about the relationship between political dynasties and democratisation. Political families in transitional societies are often seen in the context of corruption, democratic regression, deterioration of socio-economic development, inequality, and deprivation. In my contribution, I argue that legacy politicians are not per se the Pandora’s box of low-quality politics. More specifically, I argue that democratization conditions the behaviour of political dynasties. Using the example of Taiwan, I show in this presentation how democratization has restrained the particularistic potentials of clientelistic networks and gradually reshaped them into programmatic behaviour.

         I separated my presentation into five parts. First, I talk about the prevalence of political dynasties in democratic societies, its causes, and implications (2min30sec). Second, I discuss the mediating effect of democratization in terms of restraining and modifying the particularistic behaviour of dynasties (5min50sec). In the third part, I look at the evolution of dynasties in Taiwan (8min47sec). The fourth part addresses the question of how the modernization of institutions and citizenship norms has transformed particularistic dynasties into more programmatic ones (16min5sec). In the concluding section of the presentation, I summarize the most important findings of the study (41min38sec) and endeavour to answer the question of why some states have been successful in terms of restraining the particularistic behaviour of electoral dynasties and why others have mostly failed to do so (29min55sec). The comparative part includes South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Here, the Thai case of programmatic linkages in the rural areas is particularly interesting (35min4sec).

Transcript of the presentation in PDF.

Annual Congress Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA)

June 28 - 1 July 2023, Bali, Indonesia

At the end of June, I attended the annual congress of the Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA). The event was co-hosted by the Institute of Peace and Democracy and Warmadewa University in Bali, Indonesia. As a member of the Executive Committee, I am delighted to see that APISA is back after the pandemic with concrete ideas of launching an annual Bali Peace and Capacity-Building Forum.

The Political Economy of Beer in Taiwan

In: Beer in Asia: A political Economy, Routledge, 2023

The video offers an overview of my contribution to a recently published book on the political economy of beer in Asia. The book 'Beer in Asia: A political Economy' was edited by my colleague Paul Chambers of Naresuan University (Thailand) and was published by Routledge early this year.

I have divided my overview into three parts. The first looks at the global development of beer consumption. In the second part, I  focus on the evolutionary stages of Taiwan's beer industry. More specifically, I talk about the role of the Japanese colonial government in establishing a local beer industry. Apart from that, I  look into the socio-political role of beer in postwar Taiwan. Finally, the concluding part of my brief overview summarizes the key findings of my study.

Transcript of the presentation in PDF.

Elections and Election Campaigning

2nd Asian Summer School on Political Parties and Democratization (Konrad Adenauer Foundation, University of Nottingham, OSCE Academy Bishkek, APISA)

I have separated my course into two parts. The first one deals with elections and their impact on democratic development. Here I discuss the various roles of elections in different types of regimes. That is, I address several key issues raised in contemporary political studies, such as democratization and national identity formation through repeated elections.

The second part looks at electoral campaigns. Here I discuss different campaign modes and their utilization in democratic as well as in non-democratic regimes. I try to highlight the frequently ignored importance of popular culture in Asian electoral campaigns. More specifically, I look at the electoral campaigns of two former Japanese prime ministers, Koizumi Junichiro and Hatoyama Yukio, and that of former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian.

I further discuss three examples of how civil society has made use of popular culture to influence electoral outcomes and to challenge authoritarian regimes in recent years. Cases studies analyzed here include:

- Wake Up by 5forty2, Ashtaka, and Namewee

- Milk Tea Alliance

- Fragile by Namewee and Kimberly Chen

Transcript of the online course in PDF.

Global Society Facing Pandemic:
Towards Strengthening Governance and Cooperation

Mexican International Studies Association

XXXIV Annual Congress 2021

In my presentation I analysed Taiwan's foreign policy initiatives during the pandemic. More specifically, I discussed policy initiatives in terms of specific humanitarian initiatives (public diplomacy) as well as efforts to attract the attention of foreign audiences by highlighting the effectiveness of the government's COVID policies (nation branding).

Foreign Aid, Democracy Promotion, and Taiwan's Quest for Recognition

In: The Niche Diplomacy of Asian Middle Powers (Lexington Books, 2021).

The French Collection

Permanent Photo Exhibition, Gulu's House, Taichung

The French Collection consists of a series of pictures I took in 2016/17 in Brittany, the French Riviera and Paris. This book was first published on the occasion of the permanent exhibition of the French Collection at Gulu's House, Taichung.  

Link to publication

Link to photography section

Das Virus aus Wuhan und die gesellschaftspolitischen  Implikationen: die Volksrepublik China und ihre Nachbarn

In: Schmidinger, Thomas / Weidenholzer, Josef (Hrsg.):

Virenregime - Wie die Coronakrise unsere Welt verändert (Wien), 2020

My paper is not about the virus itself, not about a medical explanation or assessment of the measures taken, but about the general discourse on the socio-political consequences of the pandemic. In the first part of my anaylsis, I discuss the debate about China's role in the pandemic. In the second part, I address the lack of solidarity with China and the consequences of the pandemic in terms of democratic development. The last section of the paper deals with the question of what will remain of the critical discourse after the crisis and to what extent the pandemic has changed society in its basic democratic structures.

Link to publication

PDF of my paper

In response to Wilhelm Reichmann

International 2020

In January 2020, Wilhelm Reichmann of the Austrian journal INTERNATIONAL published his analysis of the 2020 national elections in Taiwan on the journal's YouTube channel. As the analysis contains several misconceptions about Taiwan's political situation, I felt inclined to post a commentary.

PDF of my commentary.  

The Dialectic of Nationalism and Democratic Governance in Taiwan

Asian International Studies Review, 2016

The effect of cigarette price increases on cigarette consumption, tax revenue, and smoking-related death in Africa from 1999 to 2013

International Journal of Public Health, 2017