Dafydd Fell

Government and Politics in Taiwan

1. Introduction to Government and Politics in Taiwan 2. Authoritarian Rule: The Politics of Martial Law in Taiwan 3. Transition to Democracy and Democratic Consolidation 4. Taiwans Government and Constitutional Structure 5. Electoral Politics: Milestones, Electoral Systems, and Political Communication 6. Party Politics in Taiwan 7. Local and Factional Politics 8. Competing National Identities 9. Taiwans External Relations: Balancing International Space and Cross-Strait Relations 10. From a Leninist Corporatist State to Vibrant Civil Society: The Emergence and Role of Social Movements 11. Is Democracy Working in Taiwan? Social Welfare and Political Corruption 12. Taiwan After 2000: Changes of Ruling Parties, Critical Elections and Lessons of Defeat 13. A Multitude of Political Miracles and Future Challenges

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Patterns of Party Switching in Multiparty Taiwan

Patterns of party switching in Taiwan have played an important role in the development and relative stability of its party system. In this study I aim to track key patterns of how politicians switched their partisan affiliation during the critical periods of party system change. I examine the level of party switching, where party switching was most prevalent, when switching was most common, and the most common types of switching since the advent of multiparty politics in Taiwan. Party switching is an im portant phenomenon in the development of party politics in Taiwan but thus far it has received surprisingly little systematic attention. This is the first comprehensive attempt to tackle this understudied topic. KEYWORDS : Taiwan, party switching, political parties, party systems

Measuring and Explaining Party Change in Taiwan: 1991-2004

This article examines party platform change in a third wave democratic country, Taiwan, during its first fourteen years of full multiparty elections. A variety of datasets show that Taiwans parties have moved from polarized positions toward a moderate center on all core electoral issues. However, the parties have not converged into indistinguishable catchall parties; instead they have instituted a state of moderate differentiation. The degree to which Taiwans parties have moderated and been electorally successful has been intimately tied to the internal balance of power between election-oriented and ideologically conservative factions or leaders. In response to public opinion and electoral competition, Taiwans election-oriented leaders attempted to drag their parties toward centrist positions. The key variable constraining convergent party movement and maintaining differentiation has been the strength of ideologically conservative party factions. When these ideologically oriented factions have held the upper hand in parties, they have promoted ideologically orthodox but often unpopular policies. Even when the election-oriented faction is in control at the party center, secondary factions have been able to constrain movement away from party ideals.

The Electoral Fortunes of Taiwan's Green Party: 1996–2012

The Green Party Taiwan (GPT) represents an important case both for scholars of environmental politics but also Taiwanese politics. Established in 1996, it is the oldest Asian green party and is one of the most active parties in the Asia-Pacific Greens network. The party has enjoyed mixed electoral fortunes. After promising early election results, the GPT virtually ceased contesting elections between 2000 and 2005. However, from 2006 the party began a gradual revival in its vote shares. This process culminated in the January 2012 Legislative Yuan election when the GPT surprised many observers by coming fifth in the proportional party vote. Considering the limited resources at the partys disposal this was quite an achievement. In this study, we examine and explain the changing electoral fortunes of the GPT since its establishment in 1996. We are interested to see whether standard theories for explaining small or ecological party success, that have been developed in western Europe, work well in the Taiwan context. Our research is based on a range of new fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2014. These include in-depth interviews with campaigners and party leaders, focus group sessions with party leaders and candidates, and interviews with party supporters.

The Role of the Media and Political Communication after Democratic Transition

The collection of articles in this volume makes an important contribution to our understanding of the role of the media and political communication in new democracies. This is a welcome addition to the field, as the comparative political communications literature tends to focus on developments in Western Europe and the United States. The chapters address cases in the main geographical regions that featured in what Samuel Huntington describes as the “Third Wave of Democratization,” namely Eastern and Southern Europe, East Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Although all the cases can be categorized as “New Democracies,” there is a good variation in their relative degree of democratic consolidation, ranging from cases such as Spain, which are regarded as consolidated democracies, to states such as Russia or Ukraine that retain many of the communist regime’s authoritarian practices in dealing with the media and actually have been categorized by Freedom House as “Not Free” or “Partly Free.” In the introductory chapter, Katrin Voltmer challenges the common contention in the democratization literature that views media change after transition as a dependent variable of political and market forces. Instead, she argues that the media is also “actively taking part in the process of democratization by shaping the orientations and actions of other participants” (p. 6). In other words, “the book is based on a model that conceptualizes political communication as a system of dynamic interaction between political actors, the media and audience members, each of whom is involved in producing, receiving and interpreting political messages” ( p. 6). The volume is then divided into three core parts. The first examines the mass media and journalistic practices. This is followed by a section on the communication strategies of parties and governments, while the third looks at

The Evolution and Role of Campaign Issues in Taiwan's 1990s Elections

Back in 1990, no one could have predicted that by 2000 almost all the Democratic Progressive Partys (DPP) early platform goals would have been achieved and that it would be the ruling party. As the DPP was a loose collection of former dissidents, who were divided ideologically and factionally, it was seen as only a matter of time before it would split. The Kuomintang (KMT) hoped and many expected it to follow the Japanese Liberal Democratic Partys model of a one-party dominant system. The KMT had overwhelming advantages in terms of patronage, financial resources, in the bureaucracy, military and the media. In fact, compared with other former authoritarian regimes in Southern and Eastern Europe, the KMT adapted remarkably well to a decade of democratic elections. It has had the ideological flexibility to co-opt popular opposition demands and this has contributed to its electoral success. However, contrary to expectations it was the KMT that split three times in 1993, 1995-1996 and 1999-2000, while the DPPs splits were insignificant. The DPPs only effective weapon in this process has been campaign issues as realignment has occurred along the lines of the core electoral issues. The KMTs policy flexibility enabled the DPP to achieve the majority of its policy objectives without actually holding office. Although the KMT did not lose power until 2000, its transformation since 1991 has been so great that it is the equivalent of a change in ruling party. In short, in this article, I argue that, contrary to expectations, campaign issues have increasingly mattered in the radical transformation of Taiwanese politics during the 1990s. The purpose of this article is to address these three key questions: (1) How and why have the main parties adjusted their positions on the core electoral issues between 1991 and 2000? (2) What are the consequences of these shifts on the Taiwanese political landscape? and (3) Why are issues so important in analysing elections in Taiwan?