Situating Taiwanese identities: social transformations, young people and television drama

This thesis examines the recent production and consumption of television dramas in Taiwan in the context of Taiwan's complicated modem history, rapid social transitions, budding self-assertiveness and changing relationships with regional and global players. The detailed analysis in this subject matter contributes to wider debates in the media globalisation theory, reaffirming the continuing development of an East Asian cultural trading block and pointing to a formation of the distinctive regional popular culture that is more effective in shaping up the local production and consumption activities. The rising regional dynamism in Taiwan's television drama production and consumption since the late 1990s has been encapsulated in this thesis in three main points: 1. The findings from detailed content analysis on programming schedules of seven locally-run channels has shown that regional programming is more integrated with local business while global programming (mostly American) has shifted to be produced and distributed single-handedly by the transnational media corporations. 2. The first-hand audience interviews revealed a subtle difference in young people's viewing experiences of the global and the regional programming. Situated in a broader social context, their experience of the former has primarily crouched on a fantasy of liberal individualism while the latter provided a desirable template for emulation in everyday life. 3. The thesis also discussed the emergence of a new drama genre on Taiwanese television-Idol drama, which can be seen as the reactions to the widespread regional television deregulation, commercialisation and growing intra-regional cultural trade. Its late development has also epitomised An inevitable negotiation of local characteristic with regional forces

Second careers for military officers : the training and development issues and implications in Taiwan

This study investigated the situations and trends towards second careers and employment opportunities of military officers in the Taiwanese armed forces, following their retirement. The research issues were pursued by highlighting the problems of officers retiring at the middle-top ranks of major, It. colonel and colonel in Taiwan.This research has attempted not only to explore quantitatively and qualitatively the second career development of retired military officers (assessing job satisfaction and identifying employment problems), but also to see whether the experiences and perceptions of retired military officers in this field research generate insights which may contribute to managerial, sociological, or even military thinking, and be beneficial both to Taiwan and to other countries.This research explored a body of empirical data dealing with officers' training and development for a second career based on a questionnaire survey of retired officers. Two broad lines of analysis of training and development were pursued: (l) impact of actual career experiences, and (2) determinants for transition to civilian work. Of the factors relating to career experience, the officers' perceptions of the utilization of their skills and experiences and the transferability of their learning skills to civilian employment were investigated

Strategies in Maintaining Financial Sustainability of National Health Insurance Under A Single-payer System in Indonesia, Taiwan, and Canada: A Comparative Study

Health care is one of the basic human needs and also human rights, which relate directly to determining ones’ quality of life. In the past decades, health care advances, demographic shifting, and health-related lifestyle have been influencing the demand and supply of healthcare in every country. Some people have been struggling and sometimes became poor because they should pay for their health care services. Thus, most countries have been developing universal health coverage, which design to protect peoples’ financial burden as well as furnishing a better quality of care for its population. Designing and maintaining a single-payer public healthcare system is complicated and requires multiple cooperation from stakeholders. Indonesia, Taiwan, and Canada are among countries that implemented this particular system. One of the fundamental elements in administering this type of scheme is financial sustainability, which frequently tends to be a problem since it requires commitment from the government as the payer, healthcare facilities as the provider, and also the population as the user. Lesson learned from the three countries has shown that there are at least three components that ensure the financial sustainability of social health insurance under a single-payer system. First, a sufficient amount of revenue collected to finance health expenditure. Particularly for Indonesia, premium structure and calculation possibly become a significant concern when compared to Taiwan National Health Insurance (NHI). Second, the implementation of adequate prospective payments such as global health and the arrangement of co-payment. Third, designed and supporting systems such as innovation through a health information system and the strong commitment from boards or committees explicitly designed to support the performance of NHI

Japanese LMEs and internationalisation: a study of the internationalisation behaviour of Japanese leading medium-sized enterprises in the context of globalisation.

This thesis is about globalisation and the firm. Specifically it concerns a particular type of firm called here a 'leading medium-sized enterprise'. or LME. This term is derived from the Japanese 'chuken kigyo’ which is used in Japan to distinguish the LME from small and medium-sized firms on the one hand and large firms on the other. LMEs are not exclusive to Japan, but they thrive there. The thesis establishes the importance of the LME as a (hitherto neglected) concept and business type, and analyses the conditions in Japan that have favoured the emergence of such firms there. Subsequently the investigation employs the Japanese LME to illustrate the approach to globalisation o f this particular kind of firm. Apart from being medium sized and a leader in its self-determined area of business, the LME is characterised by being independent and highly specialised in its core competence, to which it has devoted considerable time and effort. Deriving from and substantiating its particular character is a mode of operation and strategic philosophy called here 'articulation', which is an incremental approach applied first to the LME's domestic development and subsequently to internationalisation. The type of firm discussed here is the manufacturing LME and the form of internationalisation analysed is foreign direct investment (FDI). In contrast to the large transnational corporation (TNC), the smaller LME is hypothesised to be more prone to favour proximity in its inaugural FDI endeavours. So the adjacent multinational region of East Asia is introduced as the potential initiating location for FDI by Japanese LMEs. Within this region, Taiwan is posited as the representative of 'super proximity' because of the high degree of complementarity it is deemed to have with internationalising Japanese LMEs. An aggregate sample of 110 Japanese LMEs which have invested in Taiwan are compiled and analysed to see how this investment has contributed to shaping their globalisation strategies. From this aggregate sample, five case study LMEs are abstracted for more detailed examination of the motives, strategies and regional impacts (contribution to globalisation) of internationalising LMEs. In order of priority, this research has been conducted in Japanese, English. Chinese and French. In fact, it could not have been started without knowledge of at least written Japanese and Chinese. The first contribution to knowledge of this thesis, therefore, is that it brings to light information and materials not readily available to Westerners not conversant with these languages. In addition, the concepts of the LME and articulation have been introduced into accounts of the internationalisation of the firm, and also employed as analytical tools to show that the process of internationalisation by the smaller, specialised firm (as opposed to the large, multifunctional TNC) is accomplished in a manner distinctive to itself, because of its assertive concentration on its core competence, and despite the constraints of size and scope imposed upon it. This thesis also demonstrates that Japanese LMEs make a distinctive contribution to the on-going process o f globalisation, by their (generally positive) impacts on the overseas locations in which they operate, and by helping to shape the economic integration of the East Asian region

Reviews

Reviews of Business and New Zealand Society, Women in Trade Unions: Organizing the Unorganized, Labour Law and Industrial Relations in Asia, International and Comparative Industrial Relations: A Study of Industrialised Market Economies, The Challenge of Human Resource Management Directions and Debates in New Zealand, Visions of the Future of Social Justice: Essays on the Occasion of the ILO's 75th Aniversary, Coal, Class and Community: The United Mineworkers of New Zealand, 1880-1960, Higher Productivity and a Better Place to Work - Practical Ideas (or Owners and Managers of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, OECD Societies in Transition." The Future of Wo.rk and Leisure

The Rise and Fall of the Taiwan independence Policy: Power Shift, Domestic Constraints, and Sovereignty Assertiveness (1988-2010)

How to explain the rise and fall of the Taiwan independence policy? As the Taiwan Strait is still the only conceivable scenario where a major power war can break out and Taiwan\u27s words and deeds can significantly affect the prospect of a cross-strait military conflict, to answer this question is not just a scholarly inquiry. I define the Taiwan independence policy as internal political moves by the Taiwanese government to establish Taiwan as a separate and sovereign political entity on the world stage. Although two existing prevailing explanations--electoral politics and shifting identity--have some merits, they are inadequate to explain policy change over the past twenty years. Instead, I argue that there is strategic rationale for Taiwan to assert a separate sovereignty. Sovereignty assertions are attempts to substitute normative power--the international consensus on the sanctity of sovereignty--for a shortfall in military-economic-diplomatic assets. So when Taiwan\u27s security environment becomes more perilous as a result of adverse power shift and domestic constraints hinder internal balancing efforts, Taiwan is more likely to resort to sovereignty assertions, while favorable power shift and enhanced domestic mobilizational capacity reduce the incentive to assert sovereignty. Using congruence procedure and process tracing and drawing a large amount of historical and qualitative data, I test my argument in five periods: the early Lee Teng-hui years (1988-1994), the late Lee Teng-hui years (1995-1999), Chen Shui-bian\u27s early moderation (2000-2001), the Chen Shui-bian era (2002-2007), and the Ma Ying-jeou era (2008-2010). I find that my theory focusing on external and internal constraints offer a better explanation of the Taiwan independence policy. My findings suggest that balancing, as a survival and security strategy, can take a political face under certain circumstances, and international norms do matter in political leaders\u27 strategic calculations. An important policy implication is that in contrast to the conventional understanding that Taiwan independence grows out of the Taiwanese soil, it actually has an overlooked external origin

Sosiaalipolitiikka ja alkuperäiskansat Taiwanissa

This dissertation examines the relationship between the colonial state and Indigenous peoples by focusing on the case of elderly care. Studying the Tayal in Taiwan, it investigates aging, care and well-being from the Indigenous paradigm. The aim is to develop the hermeneutic perspective of the Tayal to privilege their voices in reconfiguring the concept of care. Three research questions are posed: 1) What are the “Indigenous problems” represented in long-term care (LTC) policies in Taiwan? 2) How do the Tayal experience care in a care center funded by the state? How do they contest the policies and what visions of care do they have? 3) What are the discrepancies between policy and practice? How do they reflect the relationship between coloniality and indigeneity in multicultural Taiwan? The data consists of policy documents, participant observation, field notes, interviews and personal narratives concerning the everyday experiences of Tayal elders (bnkis). Methodologically, the dissertation employs critical policy analysis and critical ethnography. The dissertation arrives at three main conclusions. First, the identified three frames depoliticize the “problem” of elderly care for the Indigenous peoples and make them “invisible.” Through frames of secludedness and inadequacy, the construction of the Indigenous problem is depicted as caused by their geographical location and by their lack of ability to be service providers or consumers. By contrast, the frame of culture emphasizes unique traditions, allowing more agency but running the risk of imposing an image of static and unchanging indigeneity. Second, the ethnographic analysis shows the strength, resilience and resistance of the bnkis. The idealized “tribal care” promoted in the Day Club, the social center which served as the core location for my fieldwork, turns a blind eye to the fluid, contextual and living Tayal culture, which underlies the kind of care that the bnkis prefer. Investigation of the experiences of bnkis shows that the Day Club is appropriated, repurposed and redefined by the Tayal community to negotiate identities and contest predominant conceptualizations of aging and care. Third, the findings indicate that contrary to Taiwan’s claims to be multicultural and its promise to recognize Indigenous rights, the approach to accommodate Indigenous elders is still predicated on a middle-class, urban, Han-Chinese norm. The novelty of this study lies in its aspiration to develop Indigenous epistemology and Tayal hermeneutics in the context of care. The results contribute to literature in critical policy analysis, care studies, Indigenous studies, critical gerontology and Taiwan studies, as they raise important questions about what indigeneity is and the role that the nation-state plays in the making of social policy for Indigenous elders.Tässä väitöskirjassa tarkastellaan koloniaalisen valtion ja alkuperäiskansojen välistä suhdetta keskittymällä vanhusten hoivaan. Väitöskirjassa tutkitaan Taiwanin atayal-alkuperäiskansaan kuuluvien ikääntymistä, hoivaa ja hyvinvointia alkuperäiskansojen paradigman näkökulmasta. Tavoitteena on kehittää atayalien hermeneutiikkaa, jotta heidän äänensä saataisiin kuuluviin hoivan käsitteen uudelleenmäärittelyssä. Väitöskirjassa esitetään kolme tutkimuskysymystä: 1) Mitä ”alkuperäiskansoihin liittyviä ongelmia” Taiwanin pitkäaikaishoivan politiikassa on? 2) Millaisena atayalit kokevat hoivan valtion rahoittamassa hoivakeskuksessa? Miten he kyseenalaistavat vallitsevaa politiikkaa ja minkälaisia näkemyksiä heillä on hoivasta? 3) Mitä eroja politiikan ja käytännön välillä on? Miten erot heijastavat koloniaalisuuden ja alkuperäiskansalaisuuden välistä suhdetta monikulttuurisessa Taiwanissa? Aineisto koostuu poliittisista asiakirjoista, osallistujien havainnoinnista, kenttämuistiinpanoista, haastatteluista ja henkilökohtaisista tarinoista atayal-alkuperäiskansan vanhusten (bnkis) arjen kokemuksista. Väitöskirjan tutkimusmenetelminä käytetään kriittistä policy- analyysia ja kriittistä etnografiaa. Väitöskirjassa tehdään kolme keskeistä johtopäätöstä. Ensinnäkin tunnistetut kolme kehystä depolitisoivat alkuperäiskansoihin kuuluvien vanhusten hoivan ”ongelman” ja tekevät heistä ”näkymättömiä”. Eristäytyneisyyden ja vaillinaisuuden kehysten läpi tarkasteltuna alkuperäiskansojen hoivaan liittyvien ongelmien katsotaan johtuvan heidän maantieteellisestä sijainnista ja oletetusta kyvyttömyydestä toimia palveluntarjoajina tai -kuluttajina. Kulttuurillinen kehys sitä vastoin korostaa alkuperäiskansojen ainutlaatuisia perinteitä, mikä lisää toimijuutta, mutta vaarana on, että syntyy mielikuva staattisesta ja muuttumattomasta alkuperäiskansasta. Toiseksi etnografinen analyysi tuo esiin bnkisien vahvuuden, sitkeyden ja kestävyyden. Kenttätyön ydinkohteena olleessa päiväkerhossa edistetty ihanteellinen ”heimoperusteinen hoiva” sulkee silmänsä muuttuvalta, kontekstuaaliselta ja elävältä atayal-kulttuurilta, joka luo pohjan bnkisien kaipaamalle hoivalle. Bnkisien kokemuksiin perehtyminen osoittaa, että atayal-yhteisö kuitenkin ottaa haltuun, muotoilee ja määrittelee uudelleen päiväkerhon ja kyseenalaistaa identiteetit sekä ikääntymisen ja hoivan vallitsevat käsitteellistämiset. Kolmanneksi havainnot viittaavat siihen, että huolimatta Taiwanin monikulttuuriseksi julistautumisesta ja lupauksesta tunnustaa alkuperäiskansojen oikeudet, lähestymistapa alkuperäiskansoihin kuuluvien vanhusten hoivaan perustuu edelleen keskiluokkaiseen, urbaaniin ja han-kiinalaiseen normiin. Tämän tutkimuksen uutuus piilee pyrkimyksessä kehittää alkuperäiskansojen epistemologiaa ja atayalien hermeneutiikkaa hoivan viitekehyksessä. Tutkimuksen tulokset tarjoavat panoksensa kriittistä policy-analyysia, hoivatutkimusta, alkuperäiskansojen tutkimusta, kriittistä gerontologiaa ja Taiwan-aiheista tutkimusta koskevaan kirjallisuuteen, sillä ne tuovat esiin tärkeitä kysymyksiä alkuperäiskansoista ja kansallisvaltion roolista alkuperäiskansoihin kuuluvia vanhuksia koskevan sosiaalipolitiikan toteuttamisessa

Energy and Security in the Industrializing World

Provides detailed analyses of the related concerns of energy needs, the economy, and national security for developing countries—Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, India, Pakistan, South Africa, South Korea, and Taiwan. The essays serve to underline the dangerous problem of nuclear proliferation for several of these countries have uneasy relations with their neighbors. In their detailed reviews of these eight nations—their plans and their capabilities—the contributors have provided a valuable source for a neglected area of international affairs. Raju G.C. Thomas is professor of Political Science at Marquette University.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_energy_policy/1000/thumbnail.jp

Japan and Taiwan in the wake of bio-globalization : drugs, race and standards

Thesis (Ph. D. in History and Social Study of Science and Technology (HASTS))--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, 2005.Also issued in a 2 v. set, printed in leaves.MIT Dewey Library copy: 2 v. set.Includes bibliographical references (p. 518-545).This is a study of Japan and Taiwan's different responses to the expansion of the global drug industry. The thesis focuses on the problematic of "voicing," of how a state can make its interests heard in the International Conference on Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH). The ICH is a unique project that facilitates the formation of a single global market by creating universal standards for clinical trials and drug approvals. Tracing, through "slow motion" ethnography, step by step, why Japan claims a racial difference requires additional local clinical trials with "Asian bodies," this thesis rejects conventional interpretations of protectionism for Japan's resistance to globalization. It argues that more than protectionism is involved, and that a rich ethnographic understanding of Japan's medical infrastructure is required to understand the claim of biological, cultural, and national differences, as well as biostatistical arguments about the ambiguities of "extrapolation" of clinical data from one place to another.(cont.) The inherent ambiguities of efforts to create "bridging" studies as a temporary solution to these problematics created a deadlock in the ICH, and provided an opening for Taiwan, another Asian state, which does not enjoy formal recognition from the world, to speak for itself to this conference, and to create the fragile, but politically critical, possibility of becoming a clinical trial center for Asian populations. The language of genomics and biostatistics become in the more recent period the vehicles for both Japanese and Taiwanese efforts at "voicing" their concerns. Both genomics and biostatistics look different in these contexts than they do from the United States or European Union. In sum, (1) Japan's and Taiwan's response, as well as "global ethnographic objects" such as the ICH, provide important tools to rethink the comparative method as well as universalizing claims of harmonization. (2) Race, culture, and the nation-state are transformed as categories through the contemporary reworkings of genomics and biostatistics. (3) The thesis demonstrates that abstract accounts of the spread of clinical trials and resistance in various parts of the world are not to be trusted unless they include detailed probings of local understandings, identity issues, and problems of voicing.by Wen-Hua Kuo.Ph.D.in History and Social Study of Science and Technology (HAST