Citation

Lin YW. Child Abuse Rev. 2017; 26(4): 263-274.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/car.2483

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

For the last two decades, East Asia has witnessed a wave of child protection reforms. In this paper, the case of Taiwan is selected for study because of its rich experiences in this respect. With the adoption of a policy assemblage perspective, this case study aims to explain Taiwan's policy regime transformation and the shifting policy challenges. The interplay between the imported US policy model and local circumstances is found to have triggered the subsequent reform acts. In particular, with ongoing assembling of programmes borrowed from the USA, Taiwan has transformed the policy regime into a managerialist one. Moreover, through consideration of policy governance, the evolving policy regime is found to be fraught with challenges, in particular, retaining a sufficient and committed workforce for policy delivery. Based on the research findings, a more balanced reform approach towards child protection is recommended for the policy stakeholders of developing countries when pursuing relevant reform acts.

'This case study aims to explain Taiwan's policy regime transformation and the shifting policy challenges'

Key Practitioner Messages

* Learning and assembling the policy ideas and programmes of developed countries have been the mainstream approach to child protection reforms in other parts of world, including East Asia.

* Different assemblages of international policy ideas and programmes often lead to an evolving child protection regime and shifting policy challenges.

* Practitioners are advised to adopt a more balanced consideration of three major dimensions of child protection governance: system input, system capacity and system effectiveness.


'Assembling the policy ideas and programmes of developed countries has been the mainstream approach to child protection reforms'

Language: en