方方的小角落 Fang-Yu's Corner

Writing Sample 1

Author: Chen, Fang-Yu

E-mail: ernie80168@gmail.com

Paper submitted to Taiwanese Journal of Political Science, July, 2011

The Elite Recruitment of Taiwanese Economic Technocrats, 1949-2000

Abstract

     This article analyzes the political mobility of 96 high ranking Taiwanese economic officials, who have ever occupied a post at the full or vice minister levels of ministries of macroeconomic sectors, since 1949 to 2000. I demonstrate the impact of regime trait, developmentalism, on the recruitment of the technocrats. At the same time, I take Chinese economic elite recruitment, which under the influence of both developmentalism and post-totalitarianism, as comparison. The developmetalism attribute result in a high level of professionalism. Most economic technocrats have graduate degrees and were trained in economics fields. Three fifth of them obtained a degree from overseas university. Furthermore, their political career patterns were usually from similar economic sectors and transfer to these economic ministries. On the other hand, the political credentials were not important for their promotion. The membership of the ruling KMT and the experience of party posts were not a prerequisite to the upward-mobility of these officials, which marks the major difference between Taiwanese and Chinese economic elite. This is resulted from the discrepancy of the regime characteristics.

Keywords: Taiwanese economy, elite recruitment, economic technocrats, developmental state.