Embedded injustice under the developmental state: Taiwan's reflexive governance on just transition

Abstract

Taiwan has incorporated just transition into net zero governance, but implementation proceeds through institutions shaped by developmental state industrialization. This study examines how labor and environmental movements contributed to legal development and how unresolved legacies shape a just energy transition. It combines thematic and doctrinal legal analysis with a purposive comparison of ten labor and ten environmental cases, including one negative institutional comparator, and six net zero transition cases: the carbon fee, high carbon industrial dependence, worker and regional support, fishery–solar co-location, offshore wind, and geothermal development. Historical cases indicate that protections often strengthened only after collective action exposed occupational, livelihood, pollution, and territorial harms. Reforms expanded rights and administrative review, yet responsibilities remained fragmented, remedies delayed, and red–green relations weakly institutionalized. Similar tensions are visible in net zero policy: carbon fee design affords regulated firms adjustment flexibility without equivalent worker or regional safeguards, while renewable energy siting addresses livelihood and territorial claims mainly through permitting, consultation, and compensation. Because the carbon fee is recent, estimates identify structural exposure rather than observed employment or regional effects. The analysis develops brown economy dependence, the sacrifice system, and hidden and delayed governance as mechanisms through which accumulated harms become normalized in legal categories, administrative routines, and development priorities. Embedded injustice reveals how accumulated harms condition net zero governance, sensitizes just transition policy to these legacies, and supports cautious comparison across sectors and developmental state contexts. Reflexive governance in Taiwan therefore requires earlier coordination and revisable decisions.