Party Politics in Taiwan

Dafydd Fell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134240203
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Politik

In 1991 Taiwan held its first fully democratic election. This first single volume of party politics in Taiwan analyzes the evolution of party competition in the country, looking at how Taiwan's parties have adjusted to their new multi-party election environment. It features key chapters on:

• the development of party politics in Taiwan
• the impact of party change on social welfare, corruption and national identity
• party politics in the DPP era.

Including interviews with high-ranking Taiwanese politicians and material on the 2004 Presidential election, this important work brings the literature up-to-date. It provides a valuable resource for scholars of Chinese and Taiwanese politics and a welcome addition to the field of regime transition and democratization.

1 Party change and the democratic evolution of Taiwan

The year 2001 marked the tenth anniversary of Taiwan’s multi-party elections. The National Assembly elections of 1991 and the forced retirement of the senior parliamentarians elected in the 1940s on the Chinese mainland signify the beginning of democratic elections that for the first time had the potential to bring about a change in the ruling party. Ten years have passed, offering a timely opportunity to take stock of the developments in Taiwan’s party politics.

Being the only Chinese democracy, Taiwan is an important case study for party scholars. Many newer democracies have struggled to make the transition into liberal democracies with strong coherent political parties that offer the distinct policy platforms for voters to make an informed policy choice. Instead, these parties are often largely vehicles for ambitious politicians to gain office; this is well illustrated by the fluidity of party break-ups and mergers in South Korea and Japan in the 1990s.¹ In contrast, Taiwan has consolidated its democracy faster than most other new democracies, and previous studies have shown Taiwan’s political parties to be comparatively institutionalized.²

When Taiwan held its first full democratic elections in the early 1990s the prospects for Taiwan’s democratic consolidation were still far from certain. Taiwan’s parties were highly polarized on the core election issues of the day, with all its inherent dangers for political instability. In the light of the ruling Kuomintang party’s (KMT

) overwhelming election victory in 1991 and its huge financial and organizational advantages, Taiwan seemed destined to have a one party dominant system. However, ten years later Taiwan’s political climate had radically changed. The one party dominant system has been replaced by a vibrant multi-party system with up to five significant political parties contesting elections. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP

) success at setting the electoral agenda on its most favourable issues such as welfare, national identity and political corruption contributed to its increasing support rates and election successes. The DPP became the ruling party after winning the presidential election in 2000, and the largest party in the Legislative Yuan a year later. Taiwan has developed a pattern of competitive party politics in which the major parties’ election platforms rapidly became institutionalized into a state of moderate differentiation though the parties have shifted towards more moderate positions, they have retained distinct policy-based identities.

This study places itself in two related fields of political science: (1) measurement of party change and (2) explanations of party change. Taiwan scholars have touched upon these two areas; however, their principal focus has been on Taiwan’s transition to democracy, whereas the subsequent operation of party politics has been a sideshow in this literature.³ At the time of writing there are still only two academic book length studies of Taiwan’s political parties in the 1990s, both are on the DPP, while none have been published on either the KMT or New Party (NP

).⁴ This study attempts to fill this gap, with a comprehensive examination of party change during Taiwan’s first fourteen years of multi-party elections.

Party change is a broad concept, defined by Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda as, ‘any variation, alteration, or moderation in how parties are organized, what human and material resources they can draw upon, what they stand for, and what they do’.⁵ I focus on one aspect of this definition, looking at the changes in the issues that Taiwan’s parties raise in their platforms. The development of Taiwan’s party politics is examined by tracking party movement and party image on the core electoral issues. How have Taiwan’s parties adjusted to the new multi-party election environment? Have they followed a convergent pattern of competition common in many Western democracies, in which though ideological distance is limited, parties still offer distinct policy platforms consistently? Or has competition been divergent, resulting in highly polarized parties, with all its dangers for political stability? Or has Taiwan followed the common models of many new democracies of either a hegemonic one party dominant system or a completely unconsolidated system of weak catchall parties and personality orientated, issueless campaigns?

After showing the principal trends of party change I analyse the driving forces behind the parties’ changing positions. How can we best explain Taiwan’s remarkable transformation from the polarized political parties in the early 1990s to a pattern of moderate differentiation? What are the forces pushing parties towards the centre, and what variables stop them from merging into indistinguishable catchall entities? In addition, why have some parties, particularly the DPP proved more adept at finding the right issue positional recipe for electoral success? In contrast, why have others, such as the NP followed a path to electoral suicide?

Contrary to previous works and the recent pessimism over Taiwan’s democracy, I argue that Taiwan has developed a healthy state of inter-party competition, in which parties and issues have mattered in the evolution of Taiwan’s democracy.⁶ Taiwan did begin democratic elections in 1991 with a predominant party and polarized positions on the one core electoral issue. However, within ten years Taiwan’s parties swiftly institutionalized a pattern of moderate differentiation in party competition similar to their counterparts of Western Europe. In other words, although the main parties moved towards a moderate centre and ideological distance between parties has reduced, the parties consistently stress different issues and the public are able to distinguish between parties on core issues.⁷

The pattern in elections has been that the opposition DPP placed new issues on the electoral agenda. Although the ruling KMT initially rejected these policy proposals, later it often attempted to steal these popular issues. However, since both the public and parties see issues as owned, in most cases issue stealing has failed and issue ownership has remained intact.⁸ A party can be said to own an issue when it dominates emphasis of this issue during a campaign and is associated in the public mind with that issue. Ian Budge and Judith Bara note the importance of such party differentiation in democracy, ‘The essential democratic requirements for an electoral mandate policy are that there is some difference between parties so electors can make a choice: and that once elected the party will do more or less what it promised to do when in government.’⁹ The Taiwan case reveals that political parties in new democracies need not be empty shells, as with the right leadership parties can offer voters real policy alternatives.

The successful operation of Taiwanese democracy goes beyond the institutionalization of party platforms. The Taiwan case shows that having genuine opposition parties really makes a difference, as the consequent democratic electoral debate has brought tangible benefits to Taiwanese society. First, the rise of new electoral issues, such as political corruption and social welfare created new cross-cutting cleavages, a phenomenon political scientists view as conductive to democratic stability.¹⁰ Second, ten years of multi-party elections have resulted in a rapid transformation of mainstream norms towards the opposition’s position on many core issues. Products of these new values include a much expanded and more inclusive welfare system, broader norms on what constitutes political corruption and stricter anti-corruption legislation. Finally, on the most controversial issue in Taiwanese politics, the mainstream parties have reached a tacit understanding on many aspects of the national identity question. In short, I argue that democracy is working in Taiwan.

Explaining party change

Most party theorists agree that established parties are conservative organizations averse to change. As Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda put it, ‘decisions to change a party’s organization, issue positions or strategy face a wall of resistance common to large organizations’.¹¹ How then can we explain Taiwan’s parties shift towards moderate differentiation? The variables most frequently suggested in the political science literature to explain party change are (1) inner-party politics, (2) electoral competition and public opinion and (3) party ideology.

Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda note that ‘party change does not just happen’, and that change tends to come from two inner party factors; leadership change, a change in dominant factions, plus an external stimulus for change, such as electoral defeat.¹² Many theorists on party behaviour and Taiwan scholars have also given considerable attention to inner-party power struggles among the party elites in explaining party change. For instance, Cheng Tun-jen and Hsu Yung-ming claim the key determinant for the DPP’s radicalization on the national identity issue in the early 1990s was a factional pact.¹³ Many also see a change in party leadership as a critical internal factor for party change. Because of the KMT’s tradition of authoritarian leadership, change has often been attributed to its party chair.

Electoral considerations are one of the most commonly raised explanations for party change in the literature. For example, much of the work on party policy change follow a Downsian tradition, which assumes one-dimensional political competition in which parties or politicians are essentially vote seeking and free to make any policy move in search of their ultimate goal of winning office, and will converge on the median voter.¹⁴ This approach has been popular among Taiwanese scholars. For example, Wu Yu-shan argued that vote-maximizing strategies explain the movement of Taiwan’s parties towards the centre in the 1990s.¹⁵

Election results are often raised as an important factor in party policy positioning. Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda have noted that for vote-seeking parties, ‘the more pronounced their electoral failures, the more likely they are to change’.¹⁶ While Attila Agh’s study on the Hungarian Socialist Party shows that as well as party defeats, the effect of election successes must also be considered.¹⁷ In fact, in Taiwan many politicians and political analysts explain the parties’ changes as responses to crucial election defeats or victories.¹⁸

Party ideology refers to the set of basic core values that are taken as accepted by a political party, which Ian Budge notes, ‘provides politicians with a broad conceptual map of politics into which political events, current problems, electors’ preferences and other parties can all be fitted’.¹⁹ Party ideology contributes to the conservative nature of parties, constraining party policy movement or encouraging a return to policy orthodoxy. As a result of the strength of party ideology, parties tend to stress owned or favourable issues, and steer clear of those issues seen as owned by political opponents. If parties have distinct policy images and clearly owned issues, then leap-frogging, whereby parties attempt to steal opponents’ issues should be rare. For instance, no matter how popular Taiwan identity appeals are, we would not expect the pro-unification NP to attempt to leap-frog the Taiwan-orientated DPP on this issue.²⁰ In contrast to the attention ideology has received among academics studying western political parties, Taiwan’s political scientists have neglected the impact of ideology on party change.²¹

Framework for explaining party change

The abovementioned literature offers a variety of variables to explain party change. This study has integrated these variables into an analytical framework in which party positions are determined by the internal balance of power between election-orientated and ideology-orientated factions/leaders. This assumes that leaders and factions can be distinguished between those prioritizing election and ideological considerations. In addition, it is assumed that moderate policies will be rewarded by voters, whereas ideologically inspired policies will be punished with poor election results. Moderate public opinion and election results should encourage convergent party movement, while the strength of party ideology should help maintain differentiation. However, these are treated as intervening rather than independent variables. Electoral defeat does not necessarily lead to party change, and election victories do not always lead to the continuation of existing policy positions. Instead the way election results are interpreted internally within a party will be critical in determining their impact on party policy. Therefore, the interpretation of election results tends to be a hotly contested issue within parties, and generally the dominant faction or leader lays down the official verdict on the lessons to be learnt from an election. Similarly, ideology can only guide party policy when ideologists have the upper hand in a party. Therefore, it is hypothesized that when the party is dominated by election-orientated leaders and factions, the party will respond to public opinion and election results by moving towards more moderate positions and popular policies. Although most election-orientated leaders will not directly repudiate traditional party principles, they will de-emphasize ideologically orientated policies that are seen as vote losers. In contrast, when ideological-orientated or conservative factions and politicians control the party centre, then preserving inner-party unity will be paramount and the party will stick to its traditional positions, even though these may be highly unpopular among the general public. However, no matter whether the dominant faction is election-orientated or ideologically orientated, it cannot always dictate policy unilaterally, as the secondary factions often form restraining coalitions.

The degree to which Taiwan’s parties have moderated and been electorally successful has been intimately tied to the internal balance of power between election-orientated and ideologically conservative factions or leaders. Taiwan’s election-orientated leaders attempted to drag their parties towar...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1. Party Change and the Democratic Evolution of Taiwan
• 2. The Development of Party Politics In Taiwan
• 3. Issues In Taiwanese Electoral Politics
• 4. Party Change On the Social Welfare Issue
• 5. Party Change On the Political Corruption Issue
• 6. Party Change On the National Identity Issue
• 7. Party Politics In the DPP Era
• 8. Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Revised Manifesto Research Group Coding Scheme
• Appendix 2: List of Interviewees
• Notes
• Bibliography