ABSTRACT
This chapter purports to delve into the techniques that make civil society actors feel that the state is 'the other' and that they as social actors are left outside of it. Formal institutional arrangements show little about how this feeling of a state-society boundary is produced. After all, there is no clear-cut line of exclusion between state agencies and civil society, but much coming and going between the two. The Taiwanese state includes civil society institutionally and procedurally in processes such as public hearings, environmental impact assessments, and civil society seats in some panels. Certain political instruments, such as the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) or human rights conventions, are difficult to distinguish as either state or civil society. Public institutions, such as the Bank of Taiwan or public universities, also appear in this story but they rely on administrative or judicial branches to trigger executive processes.
