Foreign aid, war/military, and state building of cold war Taiwan: in search of a theoretical and comparative framework

Abstract

Charles Tilly argues that continuous wars and preparation for wars motivated early European rulers to extract resources from their subject populations, thereby expanding states’ infrastructure and establishing mechanisms to enable negotiations with societies. State capacity was thus strengthened. Tilly's argument has inspired a wave of scholarship to reconsider state building in various regions of the Third World. Analysts of the Third World employ two theoretical elements inferred from Tilly to account for the failures of many Third World states. One is that without continuous international wars (as early modern Europe had), there would be no capable and effective states. The other element is that availability of foreign aid from the global powers so unique to the Cold War Era exempted Third World states from extracting resources from their societies. I call these analyses Tillian theories of the Third World.

Tillian analysts acknowledge that the capable state in Taiwan during the Cold War stood out from its Third World counterparts. However, the Tillian generalization of the Third World does not account for Taiwan's state-building path. Taiwan's experience is situated in a perplexity between the two variables above: On the one hand, Taiwan resembles early modern European state formation with high military expenditures and a huge standing army prepared for war. In the Tillian model, this condition enhances state capacity. On the other hand, Taiwan was a huge US aid recipient in the Cold War, second only to South Korea. In the Tillian model, this degrades the state's effectiveness, contrary to Taiwan's experience. Solving this puzzle will revise Tillian logics of state building. That, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, through literature review and presentation of empirical evidences, I suggest some analytical directions for future research to enhance our understanding of Taiwan's state-building trajectory in particular and of Third World states in general.

Citation

Fan, Y.-W. (2009), "Foreign aid, war/military, and state building of cold war Taiwan: in search of a theoretical and comparative framework", Caforio, G. (Ed.) Advances in Military Sociology: Essays in Honor of Charles C. Moskos (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Vol. 12 Part 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 343-361. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1572-8323(2009)000012B020