This document summarizes a presentation on civic hacking and open governance in Taiwan. It discusses key concepts in civic hacking like decentralization, inclusion, collaboration, and viewing the government minister as a "digital minister" representing the community rather than having singular authority. It notes debates around how bold or conservative reforms should be. The presentation examines Taiwan's experience of transitioning to more open and participatory governance models after authoritarian rule.

1. CONTESTING OPENNESS,
MAKING POLITICS
MEI-CHUN LEE
ANTHROPOLOGY, UC DAVIS
04.14.2018
SLIDES CC-BY 4.0 MG LEE
THE UPRISING OF CIVIC HACKERS IN
POST-AUTHORITARIAN TAIWAN

3. Instead of saying Audrey Tang being the minister, it is
shequn [社群, community] friends who push her into
this keng [坑, position] and ask her to lead them [the
hackers]…...In this sense, she is actually shuwei
minister(s) [數位政委].
Ben Jai
“SHUWEI” MINISTER(S)
“

4. Substituting the “o” with “0″ in
gov, the new “g0v” not only
stands for rethinking the role
that the government plays
from the bottom up, but also
represents the world view of 0
and 1 in the digital natives
generation.
“
g0v (gov-zero)

5. OPENNESS
THE CORE OF HACKING

6. OPENNESS AS
OPEN SOURCE & OPEN DATA

7. On the grasslands, no one can give command.
People come and go. You might find some
familiar faces who stay here longer than others
and listen to them telling g0v’s history, but you
would never find a representative. When you yell
‘Who is in charge of here? I want to say
something,’ you will only see confusing faces,
wondering what you are talking about?
walkingice
“
OPENNESS AS
DECENTALIZATION

8. LAW Photography
PythonPHP
Visualization
Gov
Politics
Humanrights Media
ExpertNewbie
Push
JAVA Javascript UX UI
androidiOSAngularJS
GoMUSIC
Economy
DigMedical Science LIVE
Language CopyrightIllustrationFilm
jQuery
CSS
HTML
Argiculture
TXT DESIGN Environment Nuclear
Fill
Ruby
OPENNESS AS
INCLUSION

9. LAW Photography
PythonPHPGov
Po
Humanrights M
Push
aniOSAngularJS
MUSIC
Economy
DigMedical Science LIVE
Language CopyrightIllustrationFilm CSS
HTML
Argiculture
TXT DESIGN Environment Nuclear
Fill
Ruby
OPENNESS AS
COLLABORATION

10. Instead of saying Audrey Tang being the minister, it is
shequn [社群, community] friends who push her into
this keng [坑, position] and ask her to lead them [the
hackers]…...In this sense, she is actually shuwei
minister(s) [數位政委].
Ben Jai
“SHUWEI” MINISTER(S)
“

11. SHUWEI MINISTER(S)
數位政委
Explaining shuwei as multiple may be attractive, but, in
reality, there is only one digital minister. We will follow
closely on how this minister uses limited resources to
reform the government and how she builds channels for
the civil society, communities and other stakeholders. If a
policy evokes resonance among shequn [社群community]
participants, shequn will organically become the external
support. However, there is never one singular voice
among the vibrant open government shequn.
“

12. CONSERVATIVE ANARCHIST
持守的安那其

13. When open government becomes the Mirror of
Erised*, we see differently of what we desire of an
ideal government.
Audrey Tang is also a Mirror of Erised. Some expect
her to take bold steps, while some others prefer that
she takes a step back as a prelude to advance.
Jiang
“
* From Harry Porter, the Mirror of Erised shows the deepest,
most desperate desire of our hearts.

14. THANK YOU
questions & comments are much appreciated
lmclee@ucdavis.edu
This research is supported and sponsored by