Responsive Democracy: Increasing State Accountability in East Asia

4 | Decline of Kuomintang Dominance, Bureaucratic Conflict, and Passage of the Taiwan Administrative Procedure Act

4 | Decline of Kuomintang Dominance, Bureaucratic Conflict, and Passage of the Taiwan Administrative Procedure Act Now under the administrative reform by the KMT, there is a second track for appeals. [Citizens] can start at the Executive Yuan. When people fail there, then they can appeal through the judicial system. In turn, they can face each other and debate between government and people. In other words, we have created a situation where the third party or the judiciary can arbitrate between the people and government. —Yao Eng-Chi, Vice President, Legislative Yuan, July 15, 2000 Citizens’ ability to challenge administrative policies is a crucial aspect of increasing state accountability. Taiwan, like Korea, has instituted such opportunities for its citizens, thereby enhancing the responsiveness of their democratic institutions. Taiwan began its democratic transition from authoritarian rule on July 15, 1987, when President Chiang Ching-Kuo lifted martial law and other bans on political activity.1 In January 1988, after Chiang’s death,Vice President Lee Teng-Hui assumed the presidency. While consensus existed within the Kuomintang (KMT) Party regarding Lee’s succession, the question of whether he should also become the party’s chair became a hot political issue.2 The following July, however, Lee was elected chair at the 13th Party Congress. In this chapter, I investigate two periods during Lee’s presidency, 1988–96 and 1997–99, to examine another case of the passage of an administrative procedural act (APA) in a new East Asian democracy. I again ask why presidents would voluntarily tie their own hands by supporting measures that limit leaders’ capacity unilaterally to pass their preferred policies. 57 Taiwan is a particularly appealing country for this research question, since an APA passed after some unsuccessful attempts and some periods in which passing an APA was not on the agenda of those in power. This case helps to broaden my explanation of why chief executives support administrative procedural reform. Theoretically, any executive—a president or a cabinet minister, for example —can have control problems within his or her branch. In Taiwan, Lee confronted an entrenched bureaucracy that needed to be redirected toward policies more responsive to the electorate. Within the KMT, reformers wanted to move away from status quo policies whereby bureaucrats ’ regulatory decisions were biased toward wealthy private interests toward ones that represented the interests of the nation’s fastest-growing electoral demographic: younger voters. Managing this bureaucracy with an APA was one solution. I begin by discussing the origins of Taiwan’s APA (TAPA), its legislative history, and its regulatory requirements. I then substantiate my theory by reviewing the institutional and political environment during Lee’s two presidential administrations, arguing that TAPA resulted from a combination of intraparty con›ict and a recalcitrant yet institutionally protected bureaucracy. As was the case in Korea, TAPA was designed to promote change in the status quo rather than protect it, as the competing lock-in hypothesis (McNollgast 1999) implies. TAPA’s Origins Legislative History The impetus for TAPA came from the KMT’s nonmainstream faction. In September 1989, Premier Hau Pei-Tsun, a military general under President Lee, created a research panel under the Council of Economic Development to draft TAPA.3 A grand justice of the Judicial Yuan (branch) chaired the panel with eight legal scholars as drafters. The panel considered APAs from the United States, Germany, and Australia as well as drafts of measures being considered in Japan (Japan 1993, Administrative Procedure Law) and Korea (Korea 1994). The legislative debate and passage of TAPA spanned ten years. One reason for the delay was that following Premier Hau’s departure in February 1993, subsequent premiers were less active in pushing the bill. Hau’s immediate successor, Lien Chan, was a member of Lee’s faction 58 | Responsive Democracy rather than of the rival faction. In 1993, legislators from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) introduced a draft of an APA; the following year, KMT legislators offered an alternative version. The DPP legislator introduced the version proposed by Hau’s panel. Both drafts were jointly reviewed by the legislature’s Organic Statutes, Interior, and Judicial Committees . In April 1995, the Executive Yuan introduced its draft and sent it to committee. Over the next year and a half, the committee held ‹ve hearings , one of which was public. All hearings were chaired by legislators from the New Party (NP), composed of rightist former KMT members who defected in 1993...