The genesis of responsible government under authoritarian conditions: Taiwan during martial law

This article analyzes the origin and subsequent institutionalization of governmental reforms in Taiwan during the 1950s and 1960s. It argues that such reforms helped strengthen the administrative accountability as well as the governing capacity of the Kuomintang regime during its authoritarian rule. A number of factors had contributed to this process. First and foremost was the role played by US aid and its conditionality. It served as a source of administrative innovation and external checks. At the same time, the measures prescribed by US aid revived the legacy of a technocratic mode of fiscal and economic planning which had never been able to perform its proper role during the turbulent years of the Republican period. Although the resulting reform measures were rather limited in scope, their effects were long-lasting in the post-war governance of Taiwan.