OPEN A BOOK,OPEN THE WORLD
作者：Batto, Nathan F./ Beaulieu, Emily
出版社：Oxford U.P.
年份：2024
ISBN：9780197744437
書號：30268692
裝訂：平裝
定價：$1,260
優惠價：$1,197元
是偶然的擦槍走火，還是縝密安排的政治策略？
當議事衝突發生，每每伴隨著鋪天蓋地的「民主倒退！」、「立院空轉！」等譴責聲浪，然而，這些讓民眾觀感惡劣的「國會亂象」，是否真的代表了台灣民主的汙點？
中央研究院政治研究所副研究員鮑彤Nathan Batto，在1989年兩岸緊繃對峙氣氛稍歇時來台，並在此後的35年間，見證自解嚴後台灣風起雲湧的政治環境及民主化進程，及其如何伴隨兩岸分裂現況，牽動權力板塊，進而形塑當今台灣的政治生態。
本次在他與肯塔基大學政治學院院長，Emily Beaulieu教授合著的新書《Making Punches Count》中，他將帶著三十餘年對台灣政治生態的第一手觀察，援引大量數據與海內外案例分析，為讀者拆解國會衝突背後的複雜動機，及其和媒體與民意間的微妙關係，解碼最高議事殿堂裡的拳腳相向與干擾議事程序，何以作為一種民主政體下的政治溝通策略。無論你是長期關注台灣政治與社會議題，或是對當代民主制度有興趣的讀者，這位「Frozen Garlic」凍蒜先生對台灣政局與選舉角力的多年觀察與洞見，也許將帶你重新看待議事現場內的每個關鍵一擊。
In Making Punches Count, the first comprehensive account of legislative floor violence and its consequences, Nathan Batto and Emily Beaulieu focus on recent episodes from a wide variety of countries, including Turkey, South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine, Mexico, Uganda, and others. What do cultures of legislative brawling tell us about the health of democracy in a given country? Are the brawls mere fits of passion, or is there a deeper logic at work? Bacchus and Batto argue that legislative brawls are, in fact, calculated acts that serve the interests of the legislators who engage in them. Beginning from the incentives driving lawmakers in different party systems and drawing on both signaling theory and theories of contentious politics, they develop a powerful explanation of why individual legislators choose to brawl. As they show, brawls are more common in younger democracies, particularly ones with high levels of corruption, but sometimes there are contextual factors that make violence an attractive strategy even to legislators in long-established democracies.
Ultimately, brawls should be seen as calculated acts of political violence initiated by legislators to advance their careers. Legislators can strategically use brawling to send costly signals to the actors--both opponents and allies--who will have the most influence over their political fortunes. A genuinely novel account of why conflict can reach such extreme levels in democracies, the book also sheds light on the structural mechanisms that drive politicians to violence in settings where we least expect it.
Nathan F. Batto is Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, and he holds a joint appointment at the Election Study Center, National Chengchi University. He previously taught at the University of the Pacific. He has published widely on electoral and legislative politics in Taiwan.
Emily Beaulieu is Professor of Political Science at the University of Kentucky. She received her PhD from the University of California, San Diego and has published books and articles on democracy and contentious politics.
