Political Democratization and Social Policy: Exploring the Impact of Political Institutions on the Pension Scheme-Building in Taiwan
Resource
臺大社會工作學刊, 23, 47-92
Journal
臺大社會工作學刊
Journal Issue
23
Pages
47-92
Date Issued
2011-06
Date
2011-06
Author(s)
葉羽曼
Abstract
Since 1990s, Taiwan has put National Pension Insurance scheme on the political agenda, and finalized the version in 2008 after decade-long discussions by various government mechanisms and many interest groups in Taiwan’s civil society. This article seeks to employ the perspective of political institutionalism in order to identify the form of ‘veto points’ in the pension policymaking against the background of democratization. Based on the literature review, secondary data analysis, and expert interviews, we explore the impact of changing political institutions and institutional veto points on policy ideas, interests and institutional frameworks of the National Pension Insurance. The main finding is that, under the constraints of the minority government and political tensions between ruling and opposition parties during the democratic deepening phase (i.e. after year 2000), the policymaking process of the National Pension Insurance scheme has been bogged down by the interplay of pluralized, if not contradictory, political and social interests, leading to political impasse and policy fluctuations. In National Pension policy domain, we have witnessed fragmentary power relations in political institutions as well as pluralization of social interest intermediation. Although these changing contexts have indeed facilitated the contestation of different ideas conducive to the convergence of policy consensus, the result is that these contexts inevitably tended to precipitate inconsistent policy developments. The present study should demonstrate the explanatory power of political institutionalism and veto points in accounting for pension policy evolution within the context of democratic transformation, and offer rationales for the application of these theoretical viewpoints in the future research of social policy in Taiwan.
Subjects
社會政策、國民年金、政治制度論、否決點、台灣(social policy
national pension insurance
political institutionalism
veto point
Taiwan)
SDGs
Type
journal article
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