大都民主治理的跨國比較

A Cross-Country Comparative Study on Democratic Governance in Metropolitan Cities

民國99年12月26日，我國完成史上最大型的都市合併及升格案，但完成後，卻依然有許多問題未有共識。其中之一為：大都的運作，應以民主治理或是施政效率為優先？理論上，政府組織若著重民主治理，需設置較扁平的行政組織架構，並盡可能擴大公民的參政管道。反之，若重視施政效率，則需將組織層級深化，強化由上而下的指揮系統，甚至削弱民意機關的監督力量。本文的關切為：究竟「民主治理」與「施政效率」這兩原則，在各民主國家的大都政府組織架構中，孰輕孰重？本文採用跨國比較的方式，選擇七個民主國家都會城市，包括：紐約、倫敦、柏林、巴黎、東京、首爾、及雪梨，以上述城市的行政與議會系統與台灣五都的做一跨國比較分析。本文最後歸納出這些民主先進國的大都，如何在民主治理及施政效率間取得均衡。

On December 26, 2010, Taiwan legally achieved the biggest administrative integration among several highly populated and neighbored cities and counties in her own history. The so-called direct jurisdictional municipalities by the central government have increased from the previous two, Taipei & Kaohsiung, to five, plus New Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan. Although Taiwan has legally entered the era of five metropolitan cities, the structures and the functions of the five are still subject to debate and discuss. One of the hot debating issues is: whether the structures and functions of a metropolitan city should be more democratically or more efficiently oriented? In general, democratic governance and efficient management are quite apart from each other in terms of institutional designs. For instance, if democratic governance is the leading principle in governmental institutional design, the entire organizational structure should be relatively flat and open up for public participation. On the contrary, if efficiency is the primary concern for a governmental institution, its organizational design should be more hierarchically oriented, and quite discourage a check and balance system. The main question raised by the paper then is: whether the democratic governance or the efficient management principle plays a more important role in the organizational design of metropolitan cities in democracies? In order to answer this question, this paper selects several metropolitan cities across different geographical and historical areas to be compared. These cities include: New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, and Sidney. The paper expects to derive lessons from these metropolitan cities regarding how to balance between the necessity of democratic rule and the demand of efficient management within their governmental institutional designs. These lessons hopefully can offer some insights for Taiwan to learn and to consider how to further improve the quality of governance across the five metropolitan cities.