Democratization and Capacity-Building for Environmental Governance: Managing Land Subsidence in Taiwan

Abstract

A major challenge for any decentralizing regime is to develop more inclusive and participatory decisionmaking processes and to be responsive to conflicting demands from diverse constituencies while maintaining its governing capacity. Using Taiwan’s experience in managing groundwater overextraction and land subsidence in its coastal areas, in this paper we demonstrate how democratization at its early stages may create added difficulties for the political system to face when trying to solve environmental problems. Yet in the long run, democratization may lead to an increase in participative and integrative governing capacities, bringing about more effective and equitable solutions to complex environmental problems.