本文以科學與技術研究（science and technology studies, STS）及歷史社會學的角度切入，藉由檢視中國晚清以來科技與社會互動之文化脈絡，重新理解並詮釋台灣1960及1970年代科技官僚治理興起及演變的歷史。本文檢視科學、技術及工程本身內涵的政治價值，先回顧法國及美國由知識份子所倡導的科技官僚治理運動，然後摸索近代中國科技與社會的緊密關係。本文主張，台灣的科技官僚治理建構於晚清初現的中國國族主義之上，但因受到民初政爭、中日戰爭及國共內戰等因素的干擾，直到1960年代後，方因「美國介入」及「威權政體鞏固」的誘發，使國族復興、經濟發展及科技倡導等三要素有機會進一步結合，並發展成為台灣當代科技官僚政治理三位一體的特徵。

This article investigates Taiwan's technocracy from the 1960s to 1980s in terms of its technological and social history by utilizing the perspectives of science and technology studies. Unlike previous studies that focused on its institutional history after World War Two, this article argues that the close relationship among science, technology and society in China since the late Qing was the critical context for Taiwan's technocracy to build on and develop from. It was intensive Chinese nationalism that shaped the context, one feature of which was the national intention to protect China from the foreign forces of the West and Japan. For many Chinese people during the early twentieth century, especially in the 1930s, one of the important strategies to practice their nationalism was to urge their government to produce technologists and engineers and encourage them to become their technocrats. Taiwan's technocracy thus seemed like the Leviathan that Chinese nationalism had sought for almost a century. However, due to some social, political and international factors, the Chinese technocrats had few chances to attain those core political positions in the government until the late 1960s in Taiwan.