The Possibilities and Dilemmas of Civil Servants Engaging in Regional Revitalization
In 2019, the Executive Yuan declared it the inaugural year of Regional Revitalization, hoping that, as in Japan, grassroots civil servants could also transform localities, opening up new opportunities for rural areas and responding to Taiwan's rural and urban problems. However, many people question whether, under a mechanism where township and town offices serve as the primary proposers, the known ills of the existing democratic system can be avoided. Can grassroots civil servants break through local factions, the norm of political patronage, and the political circumstances of Taiwan's local township and town offices? If the heads of township and town offices support it, how should Regional Revitalization policy be tailored to local needs and break through the dilemma of a small elite?
This year's case of the Ruisui Township Office in Hualien County combined community building with deliberative democracy as preliminary preparatory work for their Regional Revitalization, hoping to break through the office's dilemmas and establish a partnership with the community. Their case this year is worth our reflection.
Regional Revitalization in a "Pitcher versus Batter Showdown"
Zhong Yalin, section chief of the Civil Affairs Section of Ruisui Township Office, and Pan Meiqi, a clerk in the Civil Affairs Section, are the protagonists of this case. They understood that, as the inaugural year of Regional Revitalization policy, the foremost task was not to immediately plan proposals and submit Regional Revitalization policies to the central government. Instead, they began to refocus on the community building associations within the township. Pan Meiqi believes: "If Regional Revitalization policy intends to solve local problems, then the community energy and local consciousness accumulated over the past 25 years of comprehensive community building will be the vanguard battle of Regional Revitalization..."
These words have their origins. When community building was proposed in 1993, it deliberately bypassed township and town offices. Its positive significance was the hope that community building policy could avoid, in its initial stage, facing the "giant" of township and town offices backed by public opinion, which would reduce each community association to a puppet manipulated by the township and town office. Its negative significance was that township and town offices, as local self-governing bodies, frankly speaking, could not be controlled by central agencies, so the hope was simply that nongovernmental energy could make up for the delays, procedures, and other problems of public agencies and truly produce practical action suited to localities.
After 25 years of community building, township and town offices have become an ambiguous and awkward role in comprehensive community building. Many times, communities see them but turn a blind eye and automatically detour around them. Over time, once the practice of comprehensive community building faces public agencies and policies within a township, constraints are inevitably produced, or related local practical work cannot be promoted as a whole.
Before Regional Revitalization policy was proposed, the Ministry of Culture actively sought, through "administrative community building," to look back and solve the problems between township and town offices and communities. But regardless of the effectiveness of public institutions' community building capacity training and the promotion of administrative community building, at the inaugural year of Regional Revitalization, the National Development Council forcefully made township and town offices the proposers, to some extent forcing interaction between offices and communities. Some commentators believe that in Regional Revitalization, communities and offices will be in a situation like a "pitcher versus batter showdown," taking turns stepping up to the plate and the pitcher's mound. Thus, in a series of offensive and defensive battles between township and town offices and communities, as one side throws "long-term care" balls, "idle space" balls, "local employment" balls..., how will the other side swing the bat (occasionally "outside reinforcements" also enter the game)? Residents will watch and see whether, in such a showdown, the two sides can truly abandon victory and defeat and offer each other a game that reawakens fans' passion.
But the Ruisui Township Office did not choose to place each other on the pitcher's mound and at the plate. They sought another possibility for communities and offices in local practice.
Combining Deliberative Democracy with Community Building and Regional Revitalization
In April this year, in the Hualien County Cultural Affairs Bureau's third-phase community building selection report, Section Chief Zhong Yalin and Pan Meiqi reported on stage. They admitted that although the Ministry of Culture had advocated deliberative democracy in recent years, hoping to help office agencies avoid falling into the problems of "majority rule" and "oligarchy" in democratic systems, at the inaugural year of Regional Revitalization, what they hoped for even more was to use deliberative democracy to force township and town offices to hear the voices of communities, and at the same time to make communities abandon their original village boundaries and rethink local problems with the "township" or an expanded cultural life scope as the unit.
In the past, few township and town offices were willing to listen to local voices through deliberative democracy, because once people's voices were recorded through text, meetings, and so on, they would have to solve the problems raised by the people. Most civil servants and agencies would not "look for trouble" for themselves. But the Ruisui Township Office did the opposite, which surprised the committee members present and the Hualien Cultural Affairs Bureau at the time.
When asked for their reason, Pan Meiqi's answer is worth reflecting on: "If Regional Revitalization policy faces unavoidable local problems, and civil servants are to sit in the office thinking about what content to propose, worrying about failure on one hand and fearing questioning by elected representatives or councilors on the other, then why not let the people directly tell us how to do it?... If unfortunately the final content does not reach what we imagined, that is fine too. We bear it together with the people and discuss it together. Even if we fail again, how far can failure go?"
