立法院委員會運作與資訊立法模式：以「下水道建設」之立法議題為例

The Information-driven Lawmaking Process in the Legislative Yuan's Committees: a Case Study of Sewage Treatment Infrastructure in Taiwan

民主國家的國會立法研究，核心理論不外乎三個部分：選舉考量、政黨因素與立法所需要的資訊成本。本文呼應國內立法研究認為黨團協商恐已取代委員會的專業審查功能，並針對委員會是否仍具有專業性來進行量化與質性的探究。本文從美國資訊立法理論出發，針對立法院現況，逐一修正並提出能夠詮釋立法院委員會立法過程的資訊立法理論；並且主張立法院委員會在面對絕大部分事務性立法的情況下，會依賴資訊立法為主，選區與政黨考量為輔的「多重決策模式」。文中以同時具有選區與專業立法性質的下水道立法議題為例，發現立委在院內，尤其是在委員會當中，會傾向以資訊交換的角度來進行立法，立法產出並且與「非母選區」與「全國性」的下水道立法議題有關。但是當立委回到選區中，又會回到著重談論母選區下水道議題的選舉模式。同時，本文也發現在立法院內，委員會不但是資訊立法的中心，並且在主審下水道立法的兩個委員會-分別是「內政」與「社福及衛環」委員會當中，「不分區立委」與「召委」扮演著資訊交流中心的角色。本文的經驗證據提供了立法院委員會存在著資訊立法模式的論述基礎。

There are three major theories regarding explicating congressional lawmaking process in democracies. These theories includethe partisan theory that is based on the consideration of election and the information theory that takes into account the informational cost of lawmaking. The third one is the partisan theory with emphasis on the partisan influence in Congress. In reconsidering the prevalentargument that the party caucus negotiation system has replaced committees' function to review bills in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, I argue that committees still serve as a place for de facto communication among legislators. That is, the informational model explains committees' process when it comes to many bills that are not politically controversial. In taking into account Taiwan's local context, I revise several key assumptions of the informational model that originally flows from the U.S. Congress. I argue that the informational model accounts for most variance of lawmaking dynamic in the Legislative Yuan, and in the meantime, the constituenttheory and partisan theoryhelp to explain the rest of the variance. In the case study of sewage treatment lawmaking, Iempirically findthat legislators across the aisle tended to focus on the expertise required for this specific lawmaking; in addition, legislators werelikely to be free of constituent influence and tended toconsider national interest. Yet, when legislators left the Legislative Yuan and served their voters in their own districts, they changed their strategy by dramatically switching their attention to the issues that were only related to their districts'sewage treatment.In other words, these legislators' concern becomes parochial. As far as other independent variables are concerned, I find that party list of proportional representatives and the chairs of some committees played a critical role of facilitating information exchange. The empirical finding demonstrates theconditional explanatorypower of the informational model in Taiwan's legislature.