Ideational resistance: Taiwan's political warfare system and the civic tech community
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
- Venue
- Main Building, SOAS University of London, 10 Thornhaugh St, London WC1H 0XG
- Room
- R201
About this event
What are the relationships between resistance, the state, and civil society? This presentation explores Taiwan's political warfare system and civic-tech community as sites of resistance to China's disinformation and united front work.
Much of the literature on resistance and counter-interference takes a state centric view which neglects the role of civil society. Yet both Taiwan's political warfare system as well as its civic tech community present valuable empirical insights into how states and civil societies carry out resistance to "grey zone" and "hybrid warfare" activities through institutions and technologies.
These sites of resistance are informed by Taiwan's authoritarian legacy, yet both remain key to the country's broader counter-interference strategy. Using the concept of a 'mobilisation of bias'--forms of political organisation that organise in certain types of conflict while suppressing others-- I seek to illustrate:
- forms of transnational resistance that may speak to other cases;
- restore the agency of civil society in the construction of state power and state resistance.
Meet the speaker
Mariah Thornton
Mariah Thornton is a MPhil/PhD student at the Department of International Relations and a researcher at LSE IDEAS. Her research focuses on China’s foreign policy and strategy toward Taiwan, cross-Strait relations, as well as Taiwan in digital IR. Before joining LSE, Mariah worked as a press and communications officer at the Taipei Representative Office for over two years under Taiwan’s then representative to the UK and former foreign minister David Lin.
Mariah also worked in business development at an international education consultancy with a focus on China and East Asia. Mariah completed a BA in Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford (2011-2015) and an MSc in Chinese Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (2016-2017). Mariah was awarded the Huayu scholarship to study Chinese at National Taiwan Normal University (2015-2016) as well as the Fung scholarship to fund her Mandarin studies at Peking University (2012-2013).
Image Credit: @notethanun via Unsplash
