| Summary: | 博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 社會學研究所 === 101 === The subject of this dissertation is the development of the postwar life insurance market in Taiwan. Life insurance market in Taiwan is a so-called “mature insurance market” but the mortality protection gap becomes bigger and bigger even though the total premium people pay annually becomes more and more. In order to understand the distinctions of life insurance market in Taiwan, this dissertation argues that the institutional environment affecting the market structure has to be understood, and emphasizes that the complete market research shall be composed of two relevant institutionalizing processes: （1）How the state makes the formal rules?（2）How the market actors develop the market structure in the frame of these formal rules. This article assumes that the state and the market are two interdependent strategic action field. This assumption implies two meanings. First, the state autonomy in this dissertation is the autonomy of the state embedded in the ongoing social relationship between the state and the society rather than the autonomy of the state based on the insulation of the state to the society. However, due to the pattern of the organization of the state, the policy viewpoint of certain authority of the state may prevail over that of others. Therefore, when the polity changes and the international situation changes, the roles and powers of different actors in the policy making process of the state field may change. Second, there are incumbents and challengers in the state field and market field (or nonstate field). Incumbents or challengers will try to make their policy viewpoint become one of the policy options and to dominate the development of the market. However, actors’ strategic interpretation and appropriation of the historical events only make the historical events to be the important factors affecting the policy making and market development, but actors are unable to control how the interpretation and appropriation of the historical events affect the market development.
Based on the above-mentioned assumption, this dissertation distinguishes three stages of developmental state in the history of postwar Taiwan: authoritarianism, distributionalism, commercialism. In view too many issues have something to do with the life insurance market; this dissertation chooses three of them: the appropriation of the insurance capital, the conclusion of the insurance contracts, and the management of the insurance channels. Through exploring how these three issues formed and developed in the state field as well how actors use them to advance in creating the probability of policy changes in the nonstate field, this dissertation explains how the strategic actions the actors took influence the formation of the market culture.
There are two results come out from this research. With respect to the empirical phenomena, the distinctions of life insurance market in Taiwan not only have something to do with the consumer viewpoints and the level of the socio-economic development of Taiwan but also the state policies. As far as the mortality protection gap concerned, the increase of mortality protection gap is more or less caused by the state action that providing the insurance education to citizens is not one of the policy options. Under these circumstances, the life insurance companies’ strategic actions relative to the appropriation of the insurance capital, the conclusion of the insurance contracts, and the management of the insurance channels are all aiming at speedy capital accumulation and make consumers develop insurance conception which serve the same purpose. With respect to the theoretical inference, the developmental experiences of the life insurance market in Taiwan represent a close interaction of the state and the market. In addition, it also entails that state autonomy shall not only be recognized by the despotic power and the infrastructural power but also the policy power. The policy power of the state is built on the robust civil society that the actors concern public issues and take political actions to defend their rights. Only when the civil society is robust, will the specific relationship between the state and the capitalists or certain social groups bring the market development advantages only these capitalists or certain social groups.
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