Professor Shelley Rigger from Davidson College gave us an overview, in English, of Taiwan's political parties, their position on the political "color" spectrum, and their background and evolution. Prof. Shelley also discussed the Taiwanese term "thiau-a-ka" and the underground workings of Taiwan politics, which shed a bit of light on why it is so prone to corruption and votebuying.
Interestingly enough, the professor pointed out that Taiwan's Legislative elections would be held on Jan. 12, 2008 under a completely new system which would shrink total seats in the Legislature down to 113 from over 200 something. According to Prof. Rigger, the move would raise the bar on the quality of the candidates. Another reform for the next Legislative elections is proportional representation, which would cut at the root of the thiau-ak-ka practices and other similarly corrupt practices.
The talk was extraordinarily engaging and broadened my understanding of Taiwan's political structure just that much more. ICLP is doing a great job at bringing in activities which are of interest to graduate students.
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