When people hear “constitutional reconstruction,” what comes to mind is legal scholars drafting a constitution and politicians negotiating the division of power. Legal texts are of course important, but there is one often-overlooked fact: a constitution is written on paper; constitutional government is run by people. The day after a new constitution is promulgated, taps must still run water, the power grid must still supply electricity, hospitals must still receive patients, and schools must still hold classes — and these are things legal scholars cannot do.
This article sets out to answer: why are engineers, doctors, teachers, and ordinary civil servants an indispensable corps for constitutional reconstruction? This is not meant to disparage the importance of legal work, but to make clear: what is being rebuilt is not just a set of legal provisions, but a public-life system capable of sustained operation. Introduction I02 of this series points out that the gap between paper provisions and actual operation is precisely part of what constitutional government must confront — its conclusion is cited here, and its argument is not repeated.
1. Engineers: The Invisible Foundation
Modern society is built on infrastructure: water supply, electricity, transport, communications, networks. A regime can change overnight; infrastructure cannot stop for a single day. A credible transition plan must answer “who will be responsible for maintaining public services on day one” — Introduction I06 of this series raises this very question at the outset; its problem awareness is cited here, not its methodology of textual identification. If a plan only talks about the distribution of power and says nothing about who will keep the water and electricity flowing on day two, it is not a complete plan.
Engineers’ professional judgment also directly concerns public safety: reservoir dams, chemical plants, gas pipeline networks, power dispatch — the operational safety of these facilities does not recognize political positions, only professional standards. Politics can be debated; water pressure cannot be debated. Positions can change; electrical circuits cannot change. The community of engineers are the people who translate “political vision” into “physical reality”; without them, any institutional design hangs in midair.
2. Doctors: Guardians of Public Health
Hospitals and epidemic-prevention systems must keep operating through any political upheaval. If a regime change is accompanied by the collapse of the medical system, the price paid is lives — a price no political goal can bear. The professional ethics of the community of doctors itself has public significance: treatment does not distinguish positions; duty rosters do not ask about camps. This practice of “public service transcending politics” is precisely what the spirit of constitutional government looks like in everyday life.
Going further, public health is the touchstone for testing a government’s governing capacity. A regime that cannot even maintain the vaccine cold chain, infectious-disease monitoring, and emergency triage will find it hard to win the people’s trust no matter how well it writes a constitution. Doctors and public-health professionals are the most direct embodiment of “state capacity” during the reconstruction period. Introduction I05 of this series uses everyday examples to explain the relationship between local public services and each person; its conclusion is cited here, its illustrative argument not repeated.
3. Teachers: The Classroom of New Citizens
Schools are the most important venue for the transmission of values. After the transition, textbooks must be revised and historical narratives updated — but more important than textbooks are teachers. They face students every day; their way of asking questions, their habits of discussion, their attitude toward dissent determine whether the next generation learns to think independently or learns to recite new standard answers. A set of new textbooks paired with a batch of old indoctrinators equals nothing changed at all.
Teachers themselves also need to “relearn”: shifting from indoctrination-style education to civic education requires training, resources, and institutional support — not simple political vetting. The delineation of responsibilities between teachers and ordinary civil servants involves more general principles; see Question 27 of this series, not elaborated here. The concrete cultivation path for the teacher’s role connects with Question 39 (how to help the younger generation understand history and constitutional government); it is only cited here as a forward reference, its content not repeated.
4. Civil Servants: Carriers of the System
This is an easily misunderstood group. Civil servants under an authoritarian system are not the same as the authoritarian system itself: the vast majority of civil servants do tax collection, licensing, registration, statistics, and archives management — technical work whose professional character does not change with the nature of the regime. If a transition treats all civil servants as enemies to be purged, the administrative system will immediately become paralyzed — just as Question 12 argues, one of the keys to the administrative system’s non-collapse during Taiwan’s democratic transition was precisely the stability of the career civil service corps. Its conclusion is cited here, its argument not repeated.
The key lies in distinguishing: those who formulated repressive policies and directly participated in persecution should be held accountable according to law; the majority who carry out routine administration should be retained, trained, and brought into a new accountability system. No matter how well laws are written, if the people who implement them recognize only their superiors and not the rules, constitutional government falls through; conversely, a corps of civil servants who administer according to law, whose budgets are public, and who accept oversight is itself the most everyday form of constitutional government. Civil-service neutrality and professionalization are not privileges of the bureaucracy, but safeguard mechanisms of citizens’ rights.
5. Preparations That Can Begin Right Now
These professional groups do not need to wait until the day of transition to act. Engineers can study emergency plans for infrastructure and lists of critical nodes; doctors can participate in preserving and disseminating public-health knowledge; teachers can begin practicing discussion-based teaching in today’s classrooms; civil servants can learn the rules of administering according to law, budget transparency, and information disclosure. The preparation of knowledge is itself a kind of political preparation — it ensures that when “that day” arrives, someone knows what to do.
Questions 36 and 38 of this series will discuss society’s advance preparation and the knowledge-base building of overseas professionals respectively; not elaborated here. The conclusion is but one sentence: constitutional reconstruction is a collective engineering project — it needs legal professionals to draw the blueprints, and even more it needs engineers, doctors, teachers, and civil servants to turn the blueprints into reality. Blueprints can be drawn overnight; a corps takes ten years to cultivate — and cultivation can begin right now.
Keep Reading
Constitutional Transition and Institutional Architecture
ROC-CONST-01 — Research on Constitutional Architecture, cited in this article
References
Introduction I02 of this series, “What Use Is a Constitution After All” — conclusion on “the gap between paper provisions and actual operation”; cited in this article, not restated
Introduction I05 of this series, “Local Autonomy and Everyday Life” — conclusion on the relationship between local public services and everyday life; cited in this article, not restated
Introduction I06 of this series, “How to Judge Whether a Transition Plan Is Reliable” — the question of “who will be responsible for maintaining public services on day one”; its problem awareness cited in this article; its textual-identification methodology not repeated
Question 12 of this series, “Why Did Taiwan’s Democratic Transition Not Lead to the Collapse of the State Administrative System?” — conclusion on the stability of the career civil service; cited in this article, its argument not repeated
This essay is also published in Simplified Chinese (the master text), Traditional Chinese, French, German, and Spanish.
Translated from the ZH-Hans master (published 2026-10-22).