You are cordially invited to a CSEAS Tonan Talk, a Brown Bag lecture series. The talk is open to the public, and you can bring your lunch bag to the place.The details are as follows.

Title: Re-examining the roles of middle class and civil society in the
paths to democratization in Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand
Speaker: Professor Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, distinguished research
fellow of the Institute of Sociology at the Academia Sinica and CSEAS Visiting Research Scholar

Date: December 15th (Tues.) 12:00 – 14:00, 2015
Place: Tonan-tei (Room No. 201), Inamori Foundation Memorial Building,
Kyoto University

Abstract:
There are no shortage of various theoretical assertions and debates on the bilateral relations between middle class and democracy, between civil society and democracy, and even between middle class and civil
society. However, all existing discourses are quite general, linear and static. In the 60s, the dominant thinking was to embrace the middle class to be the vanguard for Western democracies. Since the late 80s,
the popular assessment was to regard civil society as the driving force behind the third wave democratization in the non-western world. All along, it is also assumed that the middle classes have constituted the core membership of the civil society. In the recent past, many works on Asian democratization seems to have taken the similar line of argument.

But what remains to be resolved in the above three established assertions are the following questions:

First, the issue of “specification” of what segments of middle classes and what types of civil society organization that have indeed made contributions to the making of democracy and what and how have they done for the cause of democracy?
Second, the issue of “consistence or shift” of positions and actions of those pro-democracy middle class groups and their respective civil society organizations over the different phases of democratic
transitions and transformations and why so?
Third, the issue of “typology of the triple links” of middle class ,civil society and democratization in a more vigorous comparative analytical mode beyond one country case studies and what theoretical
propositions can be made?
Fourth, the issue of “social origins or foundations” of Asia’s modern democracies in post-World War Two and how to make out of that?
In this talk, I will sketch the ideas of a proposed comparative study to tackle the four important and challenging questions by looking into two Northeast Asian countries of Taiwan and South Korea and two Southeast Asian countries of the Philippines and Thailand for such typological inquiries.

About the speaker:
Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, PhD, is Distinguished Research Fellow of the
Institute of Sociology at the Academia Sinica. He is also the Professor
of Sociology at National Taiwan University and National Sun Yat-sen
University and Chair Professor of Hakka studies at National Central
University in Taiwan. He is currently a Visiting Research Scholar at
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University. His current
research focuses on civil society, new democracies, middle class in
Asia, local sustainable development, Hakka studies, and NGO studies.
Recent publications include Policy Responses to Precarious Work in Asia
(co-editor). Taipei: Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, 2015; The
Lessons of Taiwan’s Local Environment (editor). Kaohsiung: Chu-Liu Book
Company, 2015; Writing Taiwan’s Third Sector History II (editor).
Kaohsiung: Chu-Liu Book Company, 2015; Near Neighbors: Issues in Taiwan
and Hong Kong Societies (co-editor). Hong Kong: Hong Kong Inst. of Asian
Pacific Studies, The Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong, 2014. Globalization and
New Intra-Urban Dynamics in Asian Cities (co-editor). Taipei: National
Taiwan University Press, 2014. Politics, Ethnicity, Religions and Art in
Indonesia (co-editor). Taipei: Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies,
Academia Sinica, 2014. Writing Taiwan’s Third Sector History I (editor).
Kaohsiung: Chu-Liu Book Company, 2014; Democracy or Alternative
Political Systems in Asia: After the Strongmen (editor). London & New
York: Routledge, 2014; Chinese Middle Classes: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao
and China (editor), London & New York: Routledge, 2013.

Moderator: Hau Caroline, CSEAS, Kyoto University