Local Government
45
Large Cities
33
Capital Cities
12
Regional or State Governments
16
National Government
0
Other Institutions
0
Local Government
45
Large Cities
33
Capital Cities
12
Regional or State Governments
16
National Government
0
Other Institutions
0
Community
Capital
Taipé
Population
23 568 370
Language
Mandarin
Currency
New Taiwan dollar
Indexes
Democracy
31
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Democracy
31
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Corruption Perception
28/180
Medium
Corruption Perception
Corruption Perception
28/180
Medium
Corruption Perception
Human Development
0
Human Development
Human Development
0
Human Development
World Happiness
25/153
Very High
World Happiness
World Happiness
25/153
Very High
World Happiness
Global Peace
36
High
Global Peace
Global Peace
36
High
Global Peace
Global Terrorism
96
Very Low
Global Terrorism
Global Terrorism
96
Very Low
Global Terrorism
Legislação sobre Orçamentos Participativos
There is no legislation regarding Participatory Budgeting in Taiwan.
Outstanding Innovations
There are several innovations about Participatory Budgeting in Taiwan that can be observed.
First, many counselling teams are established to assistant and monitor the execution of Participatory Budgeting projects. The counselling teams are usually composed by experienced actors such as those who have devoted themselves to deliberative democracy for decades. Consequently, the Participatory Budgeting projects in Taiwan are especially emphasizing deliberation and discussion process.
Secondly, the 2015 Participatory Budgeting boom in Taiwan hoped to facilitate the administrative reformations and innovations in the public sectors, but by being overwhelmed by the given affairs, many social actors in the public sectors leaned to “outsource” the execution of Participatory Budgeting to private organizations. As a result, on the one hand, due to not too many private organizations having the experience of holding Participatory Budgeting projects, many PB cases
are executed by specific few private organizations. On the other hand, the expected “administrative reformations and innovations” cannot be fulfilled (since the whole process of the Participatory Budgeting is outsourced in many cases and the social actors failed to learn the spirit).
Thirdly, the Participatory Budgeting boom once again revived many people’s attention regarding deliberative democracy, and the “brainstorming” stage in the PB process seemed to be a suitable way to encourage general laypeople’s public participation, some significant social actors who have been devoted to the promotion of deliberative democracy in Taiwan and for decades applied the “brainstorming” phase in the PB process and innovatively employed this part as a new deliberative democracy mode (to broaden the public participation).
Lastly, the PB boom also caused the National Development Council to believe that its online voting system can facilitate the voting stage within the PB process. In consequence, the National Development Council encourages different PB cases to employ its I-voting system to facilitate the process. More and more PB initiatives have tried to use this very system.
INITIAL REFERENCE FOR THE ADOPTION OF PB IN THE COUNTRY
The initial reference for Taiwan is Brazil (the case of Porto Alegre) and USA (the case of Chicago, Boston and New York). Scholars introduced these cases for active people during a workshop that took place in 2014, and therefore, the book entitled “Our Budget, our decision” was published to gather all the information on PB. In addition, in 2015 some people visited France to learn about the PB experiences and were also inspired by France’s cases.
SUBSEQUENT REFERENCE FOR PB DISSEMINATION
The first PB project in Taiwan was conducted in Jan 2015, and this case was cooperated by Youth Synergy Taiwan Foundation, National Taiwan University (Department of Sociology), and Beitou Community College. Many PB initiatives in Taiwanese cities were inspired by this first case.
Furthermore, in 2015-2016, a pioneering PB project entitled “The Disabled Employment Promotion Participatory Budgeting Project” in Sanxia (New Taipei City) also played a significant role to inspire many subsequent PB initiatives.
This is because this project targeted the disabled people as the participants of the process, and most people predicted this would be a difficult (if not improbable) mission, hence the surprising success of this very PB project functioned to encourage the implementation of more PB processes. Lastly, Taipei City began to promote city-wide PB projects and also became an important reference for the following PB projects.
Impacts of COVID-19 Disease on PB
- PB have been suspended: 5%
- PB continued to function normally: 65%
- PB have undergone changes/adaptations: 30%
Main Trends of PB in the Country During the Pandemic
Taiwan has successfully rendered the pandemic under control, hence almost all the PB projects remain in execution. Only the schedule of some PB cases were influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic: Some cases rushed to finish the whole PB process before the central government announced the regulations on public gatherings; and some other cases delayed their PB schedule to July 2020. Moreover, due to the pandemic, even though most of the PB projects continue their execution, all the related meetings and events require participants and staff members to wear masks and perform temperature checks.
Additional Information
There has been a “PB boom” in Taiwan since 2015. Many Cities and public institutions initiated Participatory Budgeting processes, and even City Councilors took their own budget for people to discuss and decide. The budgets that were discussed and distributed by people come from various kinds of sectors, therefore people in Taiwan have the chance to deliberate about many different issues.
The Participatory Budgeting cases in Taiwan drew other countries’ attention, scholars and practitioners from other countries such as from the United States and France that visited Taiwan in order to meet with significant actors involved in the promotion of PB. Moreover, several Taiwanese PB processes have even earned international awards (for example, from the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (OIDP).
Due to the developmental trajectory of Taiwan’s deliberative democracy and the initiatives of pioneering cases of PB, most of the Participatory Budgeting in Taiwan emphasizes specially on the “deliberation”. Meaning, that participants are encouraged to fully discuss their ideas in the brainstorming stage, and it is believed that many positive outcomes can be yielded by carefully conducting this phase. Consequently, the PB boom facilitates the reviving of public deliberation in Taiwan, and more and more public issues are debated through various deliberative democracy modes.
We’ve observed many positive results brought by the promoting of PB projects, for instance, the emergence of collective consciousness, the strengthening of local solidarity, the cooperation of heterogeneous social actors, the enhancing trust and understanding among people, and so on.
Nevertheless, still many obstacles have to be solved and removed before the Participatory Budgeting can be generally accepted in Taiwan. For example, there are still people who doubt whether ordinary citizens can propose ideas with quality and from the collective standpoints, whether people are willing to participate in the PB process; and so on. More importantly, while the PB boom is clear in Taiwan, the Participatory Budgeting has not been institutionalized yet (and the only exception is Taipei City).
