Taiwanese Policemen

Jeffrey Martin’s article,  A Reasonable Balance of Law and Sentiment: Social Order in Democratic Taiwan from the Policeman’s Point of View (2007), is written through his ethnographical study of neighbourhood police in Taiwan. His focus within his research was participant observation, which allowed him to gain an in-depth exposure to the field (Martin 2007: 667). This increases the researcher’s validity as he was able to spend four years within this field as well. Furthermore, Martin argues that there are social constructions in creating legitimacy within Taiwan which can constrain the rule of law and social order (Martin 2007: 666). As a result of this formation of policing, there are obscurities. Martin concludes by saying a main obscurity is the authority of police can be questioned by other authorities which does not make the rule of law as the final word (Martin 2007: 694). Thus this leaves the state of Taiwan in a problematic position as the social order does not allow for the authority to be taken as seriously. One way this obscurity is shown is through police patrolling of the street vendors, who continually take up public space that they are not to be in. Thus, the policemen are to enforce the clean up of the streets, which takes a lot more time as they must continually tell merchants to remove their goods from the sidewalks (Martin 2007: 682). It is the policemen’s job to produce a picture of the clean space (Martin 2007: 682). Martin (2007) points out, “It soon became obvious that the practical goal of our team was not to dispose of material, but rather to provoke the owners to move it (temporarily) back into officially private space so that a picture of a clean street could be produced” (682). This shows that the policemen are not taken seriously as they do not use power to restrict the merchants from the street. For a limited time they have some authority to tell merchants to remove the goods, however as mentioned above, it is only temporarily. The owners move their goods for a limited time so that the police can take their required photograph to prove to they did their job. It seems this is a norm within Taiwanese culture that the street vendors do not view the street patrollers with respect as they do not hold enough power and authority over them. Martin (2007) reiterates what one policeman explained to him, “‘It’s impossible to make any difference,’’ he sighed, ‘‘all you do is get into arguments with people. And then they go get their popular representatives, and it’s nothing but trouble.’” (683). This clearly shows the social order which policemen are to create and enforce cannot happen as they are undermined by institutions of higher power and authority. It is said that Taiwanese street police patrols must determine if they should interfere as there are more powerful social forces within the imbalance of positions (Martin 2007: 676). 

Unfortunately to me, it seems this process is just going through the motions rather than improving any social order within Taiwan. For the future, I see this continually being worsened as the street vendors will continue to get their way while policemen are taken for granted within this Taiwanese social order they are ultimately lacking control over. 

Reference

Martin, Jeffrey. 2007. “A Reasonable Balance of Law and Sentiment: Social Order in Democratic Taiwan from the Policeman’s Point of View.” Law & Society Review 41 (3): 665-697.