Speaker: Ben Read, Professor of Politics, UC Santa Cruz

Title: The Struggle for Oversight in Local Government: Mayors vs. Councils in the Heart of Taiwan’s Democracy

Abstract: Having held its eighth straight round of direct elections for the presidency in 2024, Taiwan is widely praised as a model case of democratization. Beneath the central level, though, politics are prone to abuses like those found in many countries, including the amassing of unfettered power by local bosses. This talk draws on a fieldwork-based project that carefully examines the relatively little-studied topic of horizontal accountability in Taiwan’s cities and counties. As in most democracies, local councils there have the duty of checking and balancing the executive. Yet in practice, mayors and magistrates often develop many means of thwarting such scrutiny. The ability or inability of councils to fulfill these responsibilities provides a window on the overall health of democracy. We examine councils’ struggles with formidable and controversial executives such as Ko Wen-je of Taipei (柯文哲, 2014–2022), Fu Kun-chi and Hsu Chen-wei of Hualien (傅崐萁、徐榛蔚, 2009–present), and others. The framework developed for this study reveals new aspects of Taiwan’s politics and also promises to help make sense of problems that are widespread in local governments in the United States, Latin America, and elsewhere.

Speaker's Bio: Ben Read ‘93 is a professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research has focused on local politics in mainland China and Taiwan, and he also writes about issues in field research and comparison. His books include Roots of the State: Neighborhood Organization and Social Networks in Beijing and Taipei (2012), and Field Research in Political Science: Practices and Principles (2015). He co-edits the Cambridge Elements series in Politics and Society in East Asia. As an undergraduate he majored in Asian Studies, minored in International Relations, and wrote for the Cornell Daily Sun. His personal website is https://benread.net.

About East Asia Program

As Cornell’s hub for research, teaching, and engagement with East Asia, the East Asia Program (EAP) serves as a forum for the interdisciplinary study of historical and contemporary East Asia. The program draws its membership of over 45 core faculty and numerous affiliated faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students from eight of Cornell’s 12 schools and colleges.