The Legal System and Governance Competency of the District Authorities in Taiwan’s Five Special Municipalities
Ming-Hsun Yeh*, Kun-I Liu**
Abstract
The article attempts to expound and study the legal system and governance competency of the districrt authorities in Taiwan’s five special municipalities by literature review, focus group interview and in-depth interview. First, we take a look at the institutional evolution of the district-level authorities and clarify the relationship among the city government, bureaus and district offices in the process of delegation of duties. Second, the authors explain the change of the governance competency of district offices after the reorganization of counties and cities into special municipalities, and analyze which new governance issues the district offices may face by the use of qualitative data, including “consistency and differences,” “the division of authority,” “the allocation of human resources,” “the grade of district mayor” and “the combining district.” Besides, we make some policy proposals in order to solve aforementioned problems. Finally, we consider that the gap between legal system and reality is still wide regarding the positioning of district-level authorities. In the future, the scope of mission and power on the district-level authorities must be gradually adjusted on the premise of effectively strengthening service delivery capacity of the district office in order to enhance administrative efficiency and effectiveness.
Key words: district authorities, the positioning of legal system, governance competency
* Ph. D. student, Department of Public Administration and Policy, National Taipei University.
** Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, National Taipei University.
http://www.exam.gov.tw/public/Data/26110544171.pdf