The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy hosted a seminar for Dr. Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, the TFD’s International Visiting Fellow, at 10:30-12:00 on 15 December, 2020 at the TFD.
   Dr. Sombatpoonsiri delivered a presentation entitled ‘How civil society activism challenges autocratic persistence: a theoretical sketch’ and was moderated by Dr. Min sho Ho, Professor, Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University. Mr. I-Lun Shih, Ph.D. Student, Graduate Fellow of Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, University of Michigan, was invited as the seminar's discussant.   
   Dr. Sombatpoonsiri made extensive comparison regarding the civil society activism in Taiwan, South Korea, Philippine and Thailand, the so-called third wave democracies. She drew conclusions that Taiwan’s relatively stable democratic development relies on the efforts of the social movements in various issues areas from 1990-2014, notably the labor movements, gender movements and the environment movement, which restrain the legacy of authoritarian regime and push the government to reform. A group photo was taken after participants’ fruitful discussion on this topic.