| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 政治學研究所 === 93 === Since 1980, regional decentralization has become a global trend. In order to realize a regional community with characteristics and vivacity, to enhance the effectiveness of regional government, and to promote the efficiencies of resources, it is necessary to learn from the experiences of advanced countries such as United States and Japan in their near centennial coordination of regional governments. In comparison, even though different stages of governmental reform in Taiwan have been underway since 1993, most of the modification is confined to the central government. In Taiwan, local self-government bodies needs to overcome the lasting problems of insufficient democratic commitment and participation in citizenship society, limited common consensus between central and regional governments, arduous adjustments of administration regions, inflexibility of regional government, deficient financial resources. By establishing a system of cross-boundary cooperation, we would not only be able to more efficiently allocated national resources to advance financial situations of regional governments, but also be able to better substantiate the ideal of regional decentralization.
In Japan, cross-boundary cooperation is known as “Regional Cooperative Administration,” which is centered on regional decentralization. In order to establish an efficient local government that is capable of subsuming further authority from decentralization, Japanese government progressively advocates the reform of administration by upholding the principles of Regional Cooperative Administration.
The three principles of Regional Cooperative Administration are:
1. Promoting municipal mergers.
2. Delineating the Regional cooperative administration boundaries and conducting living zones designs.
3. Establishing joint management of regional Administrations.
Moreover, United States, as a federal government, demonstrates a diversity of interlocal cooperation in various States. Through analytical classification, cross-boundary cooperation in America similarly pertains to administrative reformation, federal or state financial assistances to regional government, adjusting municipal administrations, conducting regional cooperation, and joint management of regional affairs. Due to America’s strong tradition of local autonomy and its long history of democracy and freedom, drastic administrative redistribution has rarely been adopted after 1970s; in fact, both the public and academic forums have regarded such measures with incessant reservation.
Consulting the experiences and results of interlocal cooperation in Japan and America, this research offers the following measures for establishing interlocal cooperation between regional governments in Taiwan:
I. Preliminary Phase:
First, attempt to identify the overall issues involving interlocal cooperation in Taiwan; Second, observe how the Japanese government overcame similar problems with standing regulations and procedures; Third, the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) of the Executive Yuan should supervise the overall procedure and establish a “Regional Administration Cooperation Committee,” with the following subdivisions: “Regional Administration Redistribution Division,” “ Living Zone Design Division,” and “Regional Cooperative Administration Joint Management Division.”
II. Operation Phase:
A. Reinforce and propagandize Cross-Boundary Cooperation through publication, training, and seminars.
B. Determining the steps of the whole grand project, including legislation, detailed planning of experimental projects and step-by-step projects. As to the joint management of regional administrative affairs, it is advisable to follow these steps:
1. Short Term Goals
a. Legislation on Local Government Act should assign a chapter specifically for governing Cross-Boundary Cooperation in order to commission a communications council for regional governments and other cooperations of affairs, which may include the outlay of public areas, the uses of public facilities, allocation of administrative affairs, and personnel management within regional governments.
b. Institute specialized administrative regulations in various fields through self-reevaluation of individual partaking departments and committees and by consulting the Disaster Prevention and Response Support Agreement among local governments.
c. Encourage cooperation among the chairs of regional government and council to discuss and contribute to issues pertaining to regional commonwealth in order to avoid negligence or abuse of resources due to political or personal agendas.
2. Mid and Long Term Goals
a. Establish the system of Special Purpose District Governments. As consensus is still yet to be reached through public debate, it is plausible to appeal to the application of legislative addendum.
b. Experiment Cross-Boundary Cooperation in selected areas with operations that require broad regional cooperation, for example, garbage disposal and drainage management, through the institution of provisional regulations.
To refine regional administration redistribution, it is advisable to review the Administration Distribution Draft. By consulting the Japanese “Central Core City” and “Core City” models and instigating provisional regulations, major advancements can be made in both the regional revenue distribution and administrative power within cities and county jurisdictional municipalities, in addition, this might inadvertently resolve the dilemma of municipalities constantly and viciously competing to promote their status to be under the direct jurisdiction of the central government. If substantial results are yielded from such regulations, the provisional status should than be lifted via direct legislation of the Local Government Act.
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