The Politics Of Buddhist Organizations In Taiwan 1989 2003

Exploring a dimension of Taiwanese poltics that has received little attention, this book gives a detailed survey of three of the most important Buddhist organizations in Taiwan: the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China, the Buddha Light Mountain monastic order, and the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Association.

Laliberté looks at a relatively unexplored aspect of modern Taiwan: the influence of religion on politics. This book offers a detailed survey of three of the most important Buddhist organizations in Taiwan: the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC), the Buddha Light Mountain (or Foguanshan) monastic order, and the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Association (or Ciji). It examines their contrasting approaches to three issues: state supervision of religion, the first presidential election of 1996, and the establishment of the National Health Insurance. This study analyzes the factors that explain the diverse paths the three organizations have taken in the politics of Taiwan. Based on an in-depth examination of Buddhist leaders' behaviour, The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan compels us to question conventional views about the allegedly passive aspect of religious tradition, deference to authority in societies influenced by Confucian culture and the adverse legacy of authoritarian regimes.

The annual is a venue of publication for sociological studies of Chinese societies and the Chinese all over the world. The main focus is on social transformations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the mainland, Singapore and Chinese overseas.

This title explores the remarkable religious renaissance that has reformed, revitalized and renewed the practices of Buddhism and Daoism in Taiwan. Madsen connects these developments to Taiwan's transition to democracy and the burgeoning needs of its new middle classes.

A comprehensive overview of modern Buddhism across cultures, showing how this ancient religion has adapted to recent social and political change. Collecting the work of leading authorities on Buddhism in different societies around the world, this book details the state of the religion in Asian countries where it is a major cultural influence and in North America. The religion has changed to meet the challenges of modernity; its practitioners have incorporated those innovations and this work examines those changes in-depth. A comprehensive overview of historical Buddhist practice grounds the reader for the entire nine chapters, each of which is organized by geographical area and follows the path Buddhism took as it spread across Asia and into North America. Each chapter presents field research and critical reflection on what constitutes modern Buddhism in one of nine countries or regions. Histories of Buddhism are common; this is the only source for in-depth information on modern Buddhism.

This book is about the basis and scope of impact that Taiwan – a democracy with a population of around 23 million – has on China, the most powerful remaining Leninist state which claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has a population of over 1.3 billion. It examines how Taiwan has helped China in its economic transformation, but argues that the former exercises greatest influence through its soft power. The expert and timely contributions in this book demonstrate how Taiwan exerts real influence in China through admiration of its popular culture, be it in music or literature, as well as its reach into politics and economics. As mainland Chinese visit Taiwan, they are most impressed with civility in everyday living based on a modernized version of the traditional Chinese culture. However, discussions in the book also reveal the limits of Taiwan’s impact, as the Chinese government tightly controls the narrative about Taiwan and does not tolerate any Taiwanese posing a threat to its monopoly of power.

Buddhism in the Modern World explores the challenges faced by Buddhism today, the distinctive forms that it has taken and the individuals and movements that have shaped it. Part One discusses the modern history of Buddhism in different geographical regions, from Southeast Asia to North America. Part Two examines key themes including globalization, gender issues, and the ways in which Buddhism has confronted modernity, science, popular culture and national politics. Each chapter is written by a distinguished scholar in the field and includes photographs, summaries, discussion points and suggestions for further reading. The book provides a lively and up-to-date overview that is indispensable for both students and scholars of Buddhism.

The consolidation of Taiwanese identity in recent years has been accompanied by two interrelated paradoxes: a continued language shift from local Taiwanese languages to Mandarin Chinese, and the increasing subordination of the Hoklo majority culture in ethnic policy and public identity discourses. A number of initiatives have been undertaken toward the revitalization and recognition of minority cultures. At the same time, however, the Hoklo majority culture has become akin to a political taboo. This book examines how the interplay of ethnicity, national identity and party politics has shaped current debates on national culture and linguistic recognition in Taiwan. It suggests that the ethnolinguistic distribution of the electorate has led parties to adopt distinctive strategies in an attempt to broaden their ethnic support bases. On the one hand, the DPP and the KMT have strived to play down their respective de-Sinicization and Sinicization ideologies, as well as their Hoklo and Chinese ethnocultural cores. At the same time, the parties have competed to portray themselves as the legitimate protectors of minority interests by promoting Hakka and Aboriginal cultures. These concomitant logics have discouraged parties from appealing to ethnonationalist rhetoric, prompting them to express their antagonistic ideologies of Taiwanese and Chinese nationalism through more liberal conceptions of language rights. Therefore, the book argues that constraints to cultural and linguistic recognition in Taiwan are shaped by political rather than cultural and sociolinguistic factors. Investigating Taiwan’s counterintuitive ethnolinguistic situation, this book makes an important theoretical contribution to the literature to many fields of study and will appeal to scholars of Taiwanese politics, sociolinguistics, culture and history.