Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-n9wrp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T19:58:20.989Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Reasonable Balance of Law and Sentiment: Social Order in Democratic Taiwan from the Policeman's Point of View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Jeffrey Martin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Taiwan's political democratization has engendered a contradiction in its legal regime: consolidation of rule of law at the macro-institutional level is matched by the persistent marginalization of legal authority in ground-level social practices. This article uses an ethnographic study of neighborhood police to explore certain practical and structural elements involved in maintaining this contradictory sociopolitical order. I examine some of the processes through which state authority is invoked and applied to the policing of public space, focusing on the ideals of legitimacy that animate these processes. The argument of the article is that historical and cultural factors embodied in contemporary Taiwan's “idea of police”—exemplified in the trope of a balance between reason, law, and sentiment—are crucial to understanding how solidification of the rule of law within state institutions is kept within the boundaries of a social sensibility that does not take law as the last word.

Type
Articles of General Interest
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 665 - 698
Copyright
© 2007 Law and Society Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agamben, Giorgio (1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah (1969) On Violence. New York: Harvest, Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Bittner, Egon (1974) “Florence Nightingale in Pursuit of Willie Sutton: A Theory of the Police,” in Jacob, H., ed., The Potential for Reform of Criminal Justice. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Bittner, Egon (1990) Aspects of Police Work. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Bosco, Joseph (1992) “Taiwan Factions: Guanxi, Patronage and the State in Local Politics,” Ethnology 157–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, Charles Guangming (1995) “The Relationship between Political Development and Police Function in the Republic of China on Taiwan.” Ph.D., public policy, Program in Public Administration, University of Illinois.Google Scholar
Chao, Linda, & Meyers, Raymon H. (1998) The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Ching-Chih (1975) “The Japanese Adaptation of the Pao-Chia System in Taiwan, 1895–1945,” 34 J. of Asian Studies 391–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Ching-Chih (1984) “Police and Community Control Systems in the Empire,” in Meyers, R. & Peattie, M., eds., The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Chiang, Kai-Shek (1943) Zhongguo Zhi Mingyun [The Fate of China]. Taipei: Zhongzheng Publishing.Google Scholar
Chin, Ko-Lin (2003) Heijin: Organized Crime, Business, and Politics in Taiwan. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Chuang, Ya-Cheng (2004) “Democracy in Action: The Making of Social Movement Webs in Taiwan,” 24 Critique of Anthropology 235–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooney, Sean (2004) “The Effects of Rule of Law Principles in Taiwan,” in Peerenboom, R., ed., Asian Discourses of Rule of Law. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Diamond, Stanley (1971) “The Rule of Law Versus the Order of Custom,” in Wolff, R. P., ed., The Rule of Law. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Dubber, Markus Dirk (2005) The Police Power: Patriarchy and the Foundations of American Government. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedman, Maurice (1979) “The Chinese Domestic Family: Models,” in Freedman, M., ed., The Study of Chinese Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M (1977) Law and Society: An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Gallin, Bernard, & Gallin, Rita S. (1977) “Sociopolitical Power and Sworn Brother Groups in Chinese Society: A Taiwanese Case,” in Fogelson, R. D. & Adams, R. N., eds., The Anthropology of Power: Ethnographic Studies from Asia, Oceania, and the New World. New York: Academia Press.Google Scholar
Garland, David (1990) Punishment and Modern Society. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herzfeld, Michael (2005) Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation State. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huang, Phillip C. C. (1996) Civil Justice in China: Representation and Practice in the Qing. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, You (1971) “Liushinian Lai Jingcha Fazhan Jianshi,” in Weiyuanhui, L. L. D. Z. J. B., ed., Liushinian Lai De Zhongguo Jingcha. Taipei: Zhongyang Jingguan Xuexiao.Google Scholar
Hunter, Albert (1985) “Private, Parochial and Public Social Orders: The Problem of Crime and Incivility in Urban Communities,” in Suttles, G. D. & Zald, M. N., eds., The Challenge of Social Control. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Junior, Domicio P., & Muniz, Jacqueline (2006) “Stop or I'll Call the Police: The Idea of Police, or the Effect of Police Encounters over Time,” 46 British J. of Criminology 234–57.Google Scholar
Klockars, Carl (1985) The Idea of Police. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Kuo, Shih-Ya (2001) “Kong Ling-Cheng Yu Jingzheng Xiandaihua [Kong Ling-Cheng and the Modernization of Police Administration].” Master's Thesis, Department of Police Administration, Central Police University.Google Scholar
Li, Chongxi (1996) “Riben Shidai Taiwan Jingcha Zhidu Zhi Yanjiu [A Study of the Police System in Taiwan During the Japanese Period].” Master's Thesis, School of Law, National Taiwan University.Google Scholar
Lin, Meiling (1991) Zhian Wenti Yu Jingli Yunyong [Peacekeeping Problems and the Use of Police Force]. Taipei: National Policy Research Center.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin (1994) “The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited,” 59 American Sociological Rev. 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipsky, Michael (1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Liu, Ningyan (1990) Chongxiu Taiwansheng Tongzhi Baoan Pian [Revised Records of Taiwan Province, Policing Volume]. Taipei: Taiwansheng Wenxian Weiyuanhui.Google Scholar
Manning, Peter K. (1977) Police Work: The Social Organization of Policing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Manning, Peter K. (1997) Police Work: The Social Organization of Policing, 2d ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.Google Scholar
Martin, Jeffrey (2006) “Keeping the Peace in a Changing Regime: Police Work in Taiwan.” Ph.D., Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Ohlin, Lloyd E., & Remington, Frank J. (1993) Discretion in Criminal Justice: The Tension between Individualization and Uniformity. New York: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Parsons, Talcott (1937) The Structure of Social Action. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Potter, Pittman B (1995) “Doctrinal Norms and Popular Attitudes Concerning Civil Law Relationships in Taiwan,” 13 Pacific Basin Law J. 265–92.Google Scholar
Shiga, Shozo (1998) “Qingdai Susong Zhidu Zhi Minshi Fayuan De Gaikuoxing Kaocha - Qing, Li, Fa [A General Investigation into the Origins of Civil Law in the Litigation System of the Qing Dynasty - Sentiment, Reason, and Law],” in Shiga, S., ed., Ming/Qing Shiqi De Minshi Shenpan Yu Minjian Qiyue [Civil Judgment and Civil Contract in the Ming and Qing Period]. Beijing: Falu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Simmel, Georg (1950) “The Secret and the Secret Society,” in Wolff, K. H., ed., The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Skoggard, Ian (1996) The Indigenous Dynamic in Taiwan's Postwar Development: The Religious and Historical Roots of Entrepreneurship. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Skolnick, Jerome H. (1966) Justice without Trial: Law Enforcement in Democratic Society. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Thacher, David (2001) “Policing Is Not Treatment: Alternatives to the Medical Model of Police Research,” 38 J. of Research in Crime and Delinquency 387–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ts'ai, Caroline Hui-Yu (1990) “One Kind of Control: The Hoko System in Taiwan under Japanese Rule, 1895–1945,” Ph.D., Columbia University.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. (2006) “Psychological Perspectives on Legitimacy and Legitimation,” 57 Annual Rev. of Psychology 375–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weiyuanhui, Liushinian Lai De Zhongguo Jingcha Bianji (1971) Liushinian Lai De Zhongguo Jingcha. Taipei: Zhongyang Jingguang Xuexiao.Google Scholar
Weller, Robert P. (1999) Alternate Civilities: Democracy and Culture in China and Taiwan. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Whyte, William H. (1956) The Organization Man. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Winckler, Edwin A. (1981) “Roles Linking State and Society,” in Ahern, E. M. & Gates, H., eds., The Anthropology of Taiwanese Society. Taipei: SMC.Google Scholar
Winn, Jane Kaufman (1994a) “Not by Rule of Law: Mediating State-Society Relations in Taiwan through the Underground Economy,” in Rubenstein, M., ed., The Other Taiwan. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Winn, Jane Kaufman (1994b) “Relational Practices and the Marginalization of Law: A Study of the Informal Financial Practices of Small Businesses in Taiwan,” 28 Law & Social Inquiry 801.Google Scholar
Wu, Jaushieh Joseph (1995) Taiwan's Democratization: Forces Behind the New Momentum. Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Zhu, Jinchi (2001) Jingcha Zuzhi Biange Zhi Yanjiu [A Study of Change in the Police System], in Huang, K.-H. & Al, E., eds., Jingcha Xingzheng [Police Administration]. Taipei: Wunan.Google Scholar