International Studies in Taiwan Today: A Preliminary Survey of the Problems and Prospects. A working paper written by Gerald Chan.

It's not up-to-date--probably written around 2000--but you can still get a glimpse of the development of IR in Taiwan, its characteristics, and the difficulties faced.

I'm currently through with chapter 1 of The Logic of Political Survival, written by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson and James D. Morrow
Below is a brief introduction on the book from the MIT press:

The authors of this ambitious book address a fundamental political question: why are leaders who produce peace and prosperity turned out of office while those who preside over corruption, war, and misery endure? Considering this political puzzle, they also answer the related economic question of why some countries experience successful economic development and others do not.

The authors construct a provocative theory on the selection of leaders and present specific formal models from which their central claims can be deduced. They show how political leaders allocate resources and how institutions for selecting leaders create incentives for leaders to pursue good and bad public policy. They also extend the model to explain the consequences of war on political survival. Throughout the book, they provide illustrations from history, ranging from ancient Sparta to Vichy France, and test the model against statistics gathered from cross-national data. The authors explain the political intuition underlying their theory in nontechnical language, reserving formal proofs for chapter appendixes. They conclude by presenting policy prescriptions based on what has been demonstrated theoretically and empirically.

Ps. I must thank my friend Peter Chang--who is still studying at NCCU but interns now at MOFA--for borrowing all the books I want to read from the NCCU library.

Monthly comments by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Joseph S. Nye on Project Syndicate.

Project Syndicate is an international association of quality newspapers devoted to:

• bringing distinguished voices from across the world to local audiences everywhere;
• strengthening the independence of printed media in transition and developing countries;
• upgrading their journalistic, editorial, and business capacities.

I was doing some research on IR scholars and theories recently and came across a website called Theory Talks, below is its own description:

Theory Talks is an interactive forum for discussion of debates in International Relations with an emphasis on the underlying theoretical issues. By frequently inviting cutting-edge specialists in the field to elucidate their work and to explain current developments both in IR theory and real-world politics, Theory Talks aims to offer both scholars and students a comprehensive view of the field and its most important protagonists.
We invite you to react and leave any kind of comment, question or suggestion – the invitees frequently respond to comments and welcome any contribution to ongoing debate. Learn how you can participate on the page ‘You Talk!’.

And also two articles: International Relations as a Social Science: Rigor and Relevance and Teaching and Research Practices, Views on the Discipline, and Policy Attitudes of International Relations Faculty at U.S. Colleges and Universities.

The first is written by Jeffry A. Frieden and David A. Lake, which offers description on the "current frontiers of research on IR." The second is a survey on the IR discipline conducted by the Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations.

In addition to handling foreign student affairs, I'm also working under the National Defense and Security Unit at MOFA (They moved me now to this unit). Some of my work is to assist in coordination with government agencies such as the National Security Council and the Ministry of National Defense. We also have collaborations projects with think tanks domestic and abroad such as the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). The work is very interesting but very demanding as well.

Since most of the materials for my applications are almost complete, I have a bit more free time. Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations is the book I'm reading right now. It talks about how Romer, a professor at Stanford, divided economics into people, ideas and things (instead of labor, capital and land) and triggered off a revolution in the 70s and 80s. This leads to the now-dominant New Growth Theory in economics.

Knowledge is sharable and is different from materials such as capital and land which are excludable in nature. This has a huge implication on production because a certain knowledge can then be used by more people to create products, in economic jargon: an increasing return to scale. In the past, however, production was measured by the input of labor and capital at a given level of technology. It doesn't consider the effects of knowledge sharing and accumulation. Thus, Romer's redefinition of economic terms better explains the events that are happening in our life.