Students, policymakers network at national youth affairs seminar

This article was written by Cecilia Fanchiang and published by the Taiwan Journal on September 16, 2005. It features the 2005 National Youth Affairs Conference, which was held recently in Taipei. Hundreds of academics, students as well as government officials participated in the event and discussed various political and social policies.

The annual conference was kicked off in 2004 by the National Youth Commission. In the conference, participants are introduced to the concept of deliberative democracy - a form of political debate and decision-making process designed to promote dialogue between communities and to encourage social participation by citizens.

According to this article, the National Youth Affairs Conference is considered one of Taiwan's "citizen dialogue circles" and "citizen consensus conferences" whose goal is to broaden people's social and political perspectives through project study, role-playing, research and proposal development. The conference in 2005 consisted of various penal discussions and round-table debates about issues such as cross-strait relations, education policy and social responsibility. Other topics included environmental protection, intellectual property rights and the media's cultural and moral obligations.