How Can We Know What We “Know” About Law and Development? The Importance of Taiwan in Comparative Perspective

This chapter will argue for the importance of Taiwan as a case study for research on relationships between law and economic and political development. The pioneering work of Professor Ma and others about law in Taiwan should be developed and expanded so that scholars around the world can incorporate Taiwan’s experience into more general theorizing about legal systems and economic and political change. Taiwan’s legal system has been relevant to both Taiwan’s outstanding record of economic development and to its successful transition to democracy, yet the role of law and legal institutions in these two markers of Taiwan’s development has been understudied in the global law and development literature. This is a serious shortcoming for the scholarly field, however, as Taiwan’s successes have been too conspicuous, and are too well established, to be ignored. This chapter will seek to address that shortcoming by surveying various claims or assumptions in the field of law and development and examining them in light of Taiwan’s experience. Much of the focus will be on areas of law that are directly related to economic development, but the chapter will also examine the role of law and legal institutions in Taiwan’s democratization. The conclusions that this chapter draws should be helpful not only to scholars but also to governments or international institutions engaging in legal reform projects in developing countries of today.