Public Administration (PA) as a field of study in China has made tremendous strides over the last three decades. This paper provides an overview of PA research in China from a sample of 2,877 articles published in six top PA journals in mainland China and Taiwan between 1998 and 2008. Our analysis based on these journal publications reveals several critical shortcomings of PA research in China in research reporting, approaches, and methodologies, pointing to a long journey ahead before the full potential of such research can be unleashed. Our comparison of journal publications between mainland China and Taiwan suggests that scholars in Taiwan have made great strides in improving quality of research in a short period of time, and that such experience could provide their colleagues across the Taiwan Strait with valuable insights into the future direction of the field.

Citizen participation ought to be important in environmental governance. However, environmental issues are usually defined as science‐related ones, wherein expert knowledge is more important than the opinions, demands or needs of citizens. On the other hand, environmental issues involve spatial dimensions, the geographic characteristics of which require specific techniques to analyse. PPGIS is applied to study An‐Shun, the site of a well‐known pollution case in Taiwan, to reveal, through a participatory process, the perception of space of citizens of a nearby community. The results of this study suggest that the government needs to ensure more citizen participation in its future plans for the decontamination and renovation of the An‐Shun site. Lay knowledge or citizen perceptions of space should not replace scientific knowledge, but can supplement it. They are additional views that ought to be considered by government agencies in dealing with environmental issues. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract. Due to unique historical and structural conditions Taiwan society has long been troubled by a national identity problem. While this dilemma has captured significant academic interests in recent years, most treatments of the subject pay insufficient attention to the subjective factors which shape the national identity discourse on the island. This study attempts to reconstruct, from the subjects' perspectives, the discourses on national identity as they are devised by Taiwan residents. Based on Q methodology, we identify five discourses: Chinese nationalism, status‐quoism, confused identity, Taiwan‐prioritism and Taiwanese nationalism. These discourses are intertwined along the independence/unification continuum and share the common ground of respect for democratic institutions and liberal values and an awareness of Taiwan's de facto autonomy/independence. Our findings stand in sharp contrast to the ‘unification/independence’ dichotomy or the ‘unification/status quo/independence’ trifurcation commonly applied by the existing literature. Thus, the findings may serve as the basis for constructing a more comprehensive analytical framework facilitating further research on national identity issues in Taiwan.

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Government restructuring has been discussed extensively in Taiwan for more than three decades, and the first NPM-style administrative reform programme, which emphasizes 'a leaner and businesslike government', was launched in 1996. Since then, NPM has been the key guideline producing a strong path-dependence effect for subsequent administrative reform programmes in Taiwan. This article examines the trajectory of administrative reform in Taiwan from 1949 to 2010, the latter being the year when the Organizational Act of the Executive Yuan was passed, which symbolically represents the end of the current phase of administrative reform. Similar to many Asian countries, exogenous and endogenous factors have induced efforts at administrative reform in Taiwan. Although it is argued that it is difficult to generate any common path of administrative reform among Asian countries, the analysis of the case in Taiwan may provide some observations for future discussions on this topic, such as evidence of political manipulation, the transformation of the role of the state, the desire for an indigenous reform strategy, and the demand to revitalize the civil service system. Points for practitioners1. Administrative reform is a political process, and pubic servants have to deal with value conflicts carefully.2. Professionalism and political neutrality are the two most important things in the administrative reform process.