Politics
· Thirty years of Taiwan's democratic experiment — institutions, power structures, and why democratic infrastructure is more than voting 11 articles Updated 2026-07-27Featured
- Standard article2026-07
2026 Nine-in-One Elections: Stress Testing Democratic Infrastructure in the Age of AI Cognitive Warfare
On November 28, 2026, all 22 cities and counties across Taiwan will simultaneously open polling stations to elect nine categories of office, filling over 11,000 elected executive and representative positions. This election is unlike any before — the difference is not the candidates, but the environment in which it takes place: the CCP's escalation of state-level AI cognitive warfare, 123+ spoofed news websites, and prosecutors listing AI disinformation as one of four key election investigation priorities. This is not an election information roundup — it is a historical positioning and structural pressure analysis of this election.
24 ~18 min - Standard article2026-07
Indigenous District Chiefs in Special Municipalities: The Elected Autonomous Office Preserved by the 2014 Municipal Upgrade Amendment
On December 25, 2014, the day Taoyuan was upgraded to a special municipality, the township mayor of Fuxing was about to lose elected status — a side effect of municipal upgrading is the erosion of indigenous self-governance. The Legislative Yuan fast-tracked an amendment to the Local Government Act, creating the new position of 'Mountain Indigenous District within a Special Municipality,' allowing all former mountain indigenous townships within the six special municipalities to continue electing their district chiefs and district representatives. There are six such districts nationwide, encompassing mountain and forest villages where Atayal, Bunun, Tsou, Rukai, Hakka, and Hoklo communities live side by side. This is the concrete implementation at the local governance level of the Additional Articles of the Constitution mandating the 'active preservation and development of indigenous cultures.'
34 ~12 min - Standard article2026-07
Village Chief System: 7,748 Elected Heads, Taiwan’s Most Grassroots Political Unit
A 5:30 a.m. village office, a monthly administrative subsidy of NT$45,000, over 60 % non‑partisan — the village chief is the political position that looks least like “politics” in Taiwan’s elections, and the most complete evidence of Taiwan’s democratization. From the Japanese‑era Baojia system to direct elections in 1950, this nationwide total of 7,748 positions—more than the number of 7‑Eleven stores—has been operating as a local‑relationship agency for eight decades.
26 ~12 min
Electoral System 7
- Standard article
Indigenous District Chiefs in Special Municipalities: The Elected Autonomous Office Preserved by the 2014 Municipal Upgrade Amendment
On December 25, 2014, the day Taoyuan was upgraded to a special municipality, the township mayor of Fuxing was about to lose elected status — a side effect of municipal upgrading is the erosion of indigenous self-governance. The Legislative Yuan fast-tracked an amendment to the Local Government Act, creating the new position of 'Mountain Indigenous District within a Special Municipality,' allowing all former mountain indigenous townships within the six special municipalities to continue electing their district chiefs and district representatives. There are six such districts nationwide, encompassing mountain and forest villages where Atayal, Bunun, Tsou, Rukai, Hakka, and Hoklo communities live side by side. This is the concrete implementation at the local governance level of the Additional Articles of the Constitution mandating the 'active preservation and development of indigenous cultures.'
- Standard article
The Councilor System: Why It Differs from the Legislator System, and SNTV's 30 Years in Local Politics
In 2008, legislators switched to the single-member district two-vote system, while that same year's city and county councilor elections still used the SNTV system from the 1980s — the same country, the same voters, different offices on the same ballot, yet governed by two entirely different sets of rules. This is not a bug; it is the greatest unfinished business in Taiwan's electoral reform history, bound up with local factions, party interests, and the costs of complementary reforms. A structural map of how the two systems operate, why one was reformed and the other was not, and what this means for small parties and diverse representation.
- Standard article
Election Process: From Empty Ballot Box to Late-Night Counting, a Nationwide Democratic Ritual
Taiwan's elections are internationally renowned for their extremely transparent "manual counting". From the ceremonial display of an empty ballot box before voting to the process where each ballot is raised and called out during counting, this is not only about electing leaders but also a cornerstone for building social trust.
- Standard article
The History of the Voting Age Threshold: From 20 to 18, a Two-Decade Unfinished Constitutional Amendment
On November 26, 2022, at 4 p.m., poll workers across Taiwan began opening the boxes for the constitutional amendment referendum—the first time since 2005 that a constitutional amendment followed the full process of a national referendum. With 5.64 million in favor and 5.02 million against, the approval rate was 53%. However, because the referendum threshold was set at "more than half of the total number of eligible voters" (9.62 million), it fell short by 3.97 million votes. This article traces the structural reasons why Taiwan's voting age has remained unchanged for 75 years, from Article 130 of the 1947 Constitution to the failed 2022 referendum.
- Standard article
Election Bulletins: The State-Distributed Baseline of Fairness, and the Split-Stream of Candidate-Funded Campaign Literature
That thick bulletin every voter receives before casting a ballot is the product of design evolution accumulated since 1980. The split-stream logic — state-distributed vs. candidate-funded — separates 'what candidates want to say' from the influence of advertisers. It is the cheapest and most overlooked piece of Taiwan's democratic infrastructure.
- Standard article
What Are the Nine-in-One Elections? Nine Offices, Four Upgrades, and Three Decades of Local Self-Governance Evolution
The term 'Nine-in-One' was first widely used in 2014, built on four waves of municipal restructuring — the 1967 upgrade of Taipei and Kaohsiung, the 1979 Kaohsiung upgrade, the 2010 Five Municipalities upgrade, and the 2014 Taoyuan upgrade — alongside three institutional milestones: the first direct election of special municipality mayors in 1994, the consolidation under the Local Government Act in 1999, and the creation of mountain indigenous district mayors in 2014. Nine offices voted on a single day — special municipality mayors / special municipality councilors / county and city mayors / county and city councilors / township and city mayors / township and city councilors / mountain indigenous district mayors / mountain indigenous district councilors / village and borough wardens — represent the accumulated crystallization of three decades of Taiwan's local self-governance evolution.
- Standard article
The CEC System: A Counterintuitive Design of Dual Executive-Legislative Checks
The Central Election Commission's members are nominated by the Premier and confirmed by the Legislative Yuan. When the ruling party holds a minority in the legislature, nominations may be difficult to pass. This design, which forces the two political branches to check each other, is the last structural safeguard of electoral fairness in Taiwan — not a bug.
Others 4
- Standard article
2026 Nine-in-One Elections: Stress Testing Democratic Infrastructure in the Age of AI Cognitive Warfare
On November 28, 2026, all 22 cities and counties across Taiwan will simultaneously open polling stations to elect nine categories of office, filling over 11,000 elected executive and representative positions. This election is unlike any before — the difference is not the candidates, but the environment in which it takes place: the CCP's escalation of state-level AI cognitive warfare, 123+ spoofed news websites, and prosecutors listing AI disinformation as one of four key election investigation priorities. This is not an election information roundup — it is a historical positioning and structural pressure analysis of this election.
- Standard article
Village Chief System: 7,748 Elected Heads, Taiwan’s Most Grassroots Political Unit
A 5:30 a.m. village office, a monthly administrative subsidy of NT$45,000, over 60 % non‑partisan — the village chief is the political position that looks least like “politics” in Taiwan’s elections, and the most complete evidence of Taiwan’s democratization. From the Japanese‑era Baojia system to direct elections in 1950, this nationwide total of 7,748 positions—more than the number of 7‑Eleven stores—has been operating as a local‑relationship agency for eight decades.
- Standard article
Political Donation Transparency: The Control Yuan Platform, g0v Visualization, and 22 Years of Openness Infrastructure
Open the Control Yuan's political donation public search platform, enter any candidate's name, and you can find out who gave them money, how much, and what campaign activities the funds went toward. This infrastructure didn't fall from the sky — it was built step by step through the 2004 Political Donations Act, the 2008 platform launch, the 2017 data-openness agreement between the CEC and the Control Yuan, and a decade of g0v engineers filling in with visualization tools — one law at a time, one accounting report at a time, one civic engineer at a time.
- Standard article
Pets of Taiwan’s Presidents: From Authoritarian Wolfdogs in the Official Residence to the Social Resonance of the “First Cat”
In 1951, a wolfdog entered the Shilin Official Residence as Chiang Kai-shek’s guard; seventy years later, Tsai Ing-wen moved into the residence with her rescued cat, Think Think. From military dogs symbolizing authoritarian vigilance to rescued dogs and cats representing social concern, the changing pets of Taiwan’s presidents have, almost unintentionally, sketched the island’s democratic trajectory from strongman politics toward pluralism and equality.