Democracy and Administration: The Impact and Influence of Party Alternation on Civil Service
Chilik Yu*
Abstract
The central government in Taiwan was controlled by the Kuomintang (KMT) for more than half a century in the 20th century. As a result, scholars did not have the opportunity to conduct relevant research on the phenomenon of party alternation until the first peaceful power transfer in 2000. The first party alternation also triggered academics of public administration to treat the enduring and increasingly big issue of democracy and administration more seriously and in a more in-depth way. The purpose of this paper is fourfold: first, to comment briefly on the positive and negative results of the democratic transformation in Taiwan; second, to review the deliberation of democracy and administration in the context of the intellectual development; third, to explore the impacts of party alternation on civil service, based on the 2000 and 2008 experiences in Taiwan; and finally, to propose some suggestions for government leaders and academic researchers after the third party changeover in 2016.
Keywords: democracy and administration, party alternation, civil service
* Professor of Department of Public Policy and Management, Shih Hsin University, email: cyu@cc.shu.edu.tw.