Democratizing Taiwan

Taiwan is only one of four consolidated Asian democracies. Democratizing Taiwan provides the most comprehensive analysis of Taiwan's peaceful democratization including the past authoritarian experience, leadership both within and outside government, popular protest and elections, and constitutional interpretation and amendments.

Is the Nationalist party of China (Kuomintang, or KMT) the villain it is sometimes portrayed to be? Or is it the embodiment of the political and moral good that partisans have claimed it to be? The KMT has managed an incredible feat of economic modernization in Taiwan and has become a proponent of democracy, yet its reputation has been marred by brutal acts of repression and by ineptitude. Focusing on the role of KMT party elites in the democratization process. Steven Hood considers the KMT's evolution from a Leninist party-state to a fractious party in a competitive political system. Many contemporary studies suggest that democratization is the product of decisions, compromises, and accidents - the result of relatively short-term confrontations among elites in the opposition and softliners and hardliners within authoritarian regimes. Although these factors are important, the democratization of Taiwan has been a long-term process of elites wrestling within the confines of existing political institutions. Taiwan's case study reminds us that we need to revisit the prerequisites that must underline a true democracy - factors that are too often ignored or dismissed by scholars studying the democratization process.

Taiwan has become a democracy despite the inability of its political elite to agree on the national identity of the state. This is a study of the history of democratisation in the light of the national identity problem, based on interviews with leading figures in the KMT and opposition parties.

Published by Monash University, this paper discusses the many issues involving democracy in Taiwan.

Following a remarkable transition from authoritarian rule to robust democracy, Taiwan has grown into a prosperous but widely unrecognized nation-state for which no uncontested sovereign space exists. Increasingly vigorous assertions of Taiwanese identity expose the fragility of relationships between the United States and other great powers that assume Taiwan will eventually unite with China. Perhaps because of their precarious international position, the Taiwanese have embraced cosmopolitan culture and democratic institutions. The 2014 Sunflower Movement thrust Taiwan’s politics into the global media spotlight, as did the resounding electoral victory of the once-illegal Democratic Progressive Party in 2016. Taiwan in Dynamic Transition provides an up-to-date assessment of contemporary Taiwan, highlighting Taiwan’s emergent nationhood and its significance for world politics. Taiwan’s path has important implications for broader themes and preoccupations in contemporary thought, such as consideration of why political transitions in the aftermath of the Arab Spring have sputtered or failed while Taiwan has evolved into a stable and prosperous democratic society. Taiwan serves as a test case for nation and state building, the formation of national identity, and the emergence of democratic norms in real time.

Consolidating Taiwan's Democracy assesses the argument that political change in Taiwan, in particular the recent elections that brought a change of ruling parties in both the executive branch of government and the legislative branch, proves that Taiwan's democratization has been "finalized" or consolidated. This insightful work explores both the positive and negative aspects of democracy's consolidation in Taiwan.

Dr Wu's own empirical research and application of political theory to the island's novel and unfolding case advance our understanding of the evolutionary stages of democracy in relation to socioeconomic development.