國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

Taiwan’s economic development has been plagued by the NIMBY (Not In MY Back Yard) protests. Under democratization, the government can no longer rely purely on its authority to preclude grass-roots protests against the preemption of locally unwanted land uses. Neither has the government built up systematical channels for sufficient public discourses on siting decisions, as  a  democratic  system  normally  allows,  nor  has  it  created  credible mechanisms   to   solve   disputes.   Mainly   through   rational   choice   and transaction  cost  theory,  this  paper  examines  the  institutional  deficits  of Taiwan  in  dealing  with  NIMY  environmental  conflicts.  It  analyzes  the situational and strategic factors that had interacted with existing institutions in  three  cases–the  Sixth  Naphtha  Cracker  Plants  in  Li-che  (I-lan)  and Mai-liao  (Yun-lin)  respectively,  and  Bayer  in  Tai-chung  Harbor  area.  It argues that promoting political discourses in earlier stage of citing decisions is just the way to control undue politicizing activities by local elite soliciting private selective  interests.  This  paper  concludes  by  discussing  some  policy implications of important findings.