Congressional Elections and the Development of Social Policies in Taiwan: An Analysis of Policy Platforms in Congressional Campaigns（1992-2004）

國內關於社會政策的研究呈現極大的共同點，多數研究利用工業主義或國家中心論的觀點分析社會預算或政策發展。這種宏觀取向的研究無法解答台灣九○年後福利制度關鍵轉折的因素，同時亦忽略民主選舉對台灣社會政策的影響。本研究認為這是國內研究在威權體制遺緒下長期忽略民主與國會所帶來的結果。社會政策不會自然被制定，本研究從簡單民主模型出發，主張政治行動者與國會偏好結構才是影響社會政策制定的關鍵。因此，本研究將國會選舉視為政治行動者社會政策主張偏好的誘因，這種偏好將隨著競選過程進入國會影響後續社會政策的制定。據此，本研究探討行動者與國會的社會政策偏好，從微觀角度解釋民主化後台灣社會政策發展與轉型的因素。 本研究植基於理性選擇途徑，運用內容分析法分析政治行動者政見，探討解嚴後第二屆至第六屆國會選舉中的行動者與國會政策偏好，呈現台灣民主化後歷年的社會政策議程變遷、政治行動者政策偏好、國會選舉對社會政策偏好的影響，以及歷屆國會社會政策偏好結構的完整圖像。 本研究有三個主要貢獻：首先，探討政治行動者政策偏好，提供一個連結民主選舉與社會政策發展的微觀基礎；其次，將焦點置於國會探討影響福利國家建立的社會立法因素，有別於傳統研究將焦點置於國家制度的宏觀途徑；最後，透過微觀偏好的探討能夠提供宏觀研究中制度轉折的連結，解釋台灣社會政策制定與變遷的過程，彌補過去研究的不足。The past researches about social policies or welfare state in Taiwan present the same ways. Most researches through Industrialism and State-Centralism approaches to analyze welfare budget and social policies. But after 90s’ democratization, these macro-approaches not only cannot answer what momentums induce the critical junctures of welfare state institution in Taiwan, but also ignore the impacts of democratic elections. I agree with this statement because of the influences of authoritarian so that researchers ignore how important the democratization it actually is, especially congress. According to simple democratic model, I argue social policies decided by political actors and congress’ policy preferences structure can not adopted automatically. Therefore I consider congressional campaign is a kind of incentive to promote social policy platforms to political actors in order to win the election, furthermore these policy preferences impact the congress structure that influence social policy adoption. For these points, this thesis discusses, through micro-approach, how the social policy preferences of political actors and preference structure in congress to influence the development of social policies in Taiwan after democratization. This research roots in rational choice theory and uses content analysis to study policy platforms to analyze political actors and congress’ social policy preferences during second to sixth congress elections after the end of martial law and discuss the transition of social policy agenda, political actors’ social policy preferences, the impacts between congress campaigns and social policy preferences, and full maps about social policy preferences in congress after democratization in Taiwan. There are three contributions about this research. First, it is a micro-linkage for democracy and social policy on reaching policy preference. Second, it focus on congress differ greatly from traditional researches’ State-Centralism approach. Finally, it provides a micro approach interpretation of macro idea of critical juncture about social policy development and transition in Taiwan and can connect the gaps between macro and micro approaches