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.

Written by an experienced teacher and scholar, this new and revised second edition of Government and Politics in Taiwan introduces students to the big questions concerning change and continuity in Taiwanese politics and governance. Taking a critical approach, Dafydd Fell provides students with the essential background to the history and development of the political system, as well as an explanation of the key structures, processes and institutions that have shaped Taiwan over the last few decades. Using key features such as suggestions for further reading and end-of-chapter study questions, this textbook covers: • the transition to democracy and party politics; • cross-Strait relations and foreign policy; • electoral politics and voting; • social movements; • national identity; • gender politics. Having been fully updated to take to take stock of the 2012 and 2016 General Elections, the Sunflower Movement and new developments in cross-Strait relations, this is an essential text for any course on Taiwanese politics, Chinese politics and East Asian politics.

Examining the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) since its establishment through the aftermath of the most recent national elections in January 2020, this book focuses on Taiwan’s most important movement party over the last two and a half decades. Despite its limited electoral impact, its leaders have played a critical role in a range of social movements, including anti-nuclear and LGBT rights campaigns. Plotting the party’s evolution in electoral politics as well as its engagement with the global green movement, this volume analyses key patterns of party change in electoral campaign appeals, organisation and its human face. The second half of the volume concentrates on explaining both the party’s electoral impact and why the party has adjusted ideologically and organisationally over time. Based on a wide range of material collected, including focus groups, interviews and political communication data, the research relies heavily on analysis of campaign material and the voices of party activists and also considers other Green Parties, such as the splinter Trees Party and GPT-Social Democratic Alliance. Applying a wide range of theoretical frameworks to plot and explain small party development, this book will appeal both to students and scholars of Taiwan’s politics and civil society but also to readers with an interest in small parties and particularly environmental parties and movements.

This book shows that Taiwan, unlike other countries, avoided serious economic disruption and social conflict, and arrived at its goal of multi-party competition with little blood shed. Nonetheless, this survey reveals that for those who imagine democracy to be the panacea for every social, economic and political ill, Taiwan's continuing struggles against corruption, isolation and division offer a cautionary lesson. This book is an ideal, one-stop resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of political science, particuarly those interested in the international politics of China, and the Asia-Pacific.

For centuries, various great powers have both exploited and benefited Taiwan, shaping its multiple and frequently contradictory identities. Offering a narrative of the island's political history, the author contends that it is best understood as a continuous struggle for security.

The Taiwan Voter examines the critical role ethnic and national identities play in politics, utilizing the case of Taiwan. Although elections there often raise international tensions, and have led to military demonstrations by China, no scholarly books have examined how Taiwan’s voters make electoral choices in a dangerous environment. Critiquing the conventional interpretation of politics as an ideological battle between liberals and conservatives, The Taiwan Voter demonstrates in Taiwan the party system and voters’ responses are shaped by one powerful determinant of national identity—the China factor. Taiwan’s electoral politics draws international scholarly interest because of the prominent role of ethnic and national identification. While in most countries the many tangled strands of competing identities are daunting for scholarly analysis, in Taiwan the cleavages are powerful and limited in number, so the logic of interrelationships among issues, partisanship, and identity are particularly clear. The Taiwan Voter unites experts to investigate the ways in which social identities, policy views, and partisan preferences intersect and influence each other. These novel findings have wide applicability to other countries, and will be of interest to a broad range of social scientists interested in identity politics.

This book explores the dynamics of party politics in Taiwan and cross-Strait relations over the past decade. While power transfer from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) back to the pro-status quo Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT) in 2008 ushered a great leap of cross-Strait relations in the following years, the DPP’s coming back to power in 2016 has reversed the trend and brought back a cold peace between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait featuring the period of the Chen Shui-bian administration. Social cleavage and partisan confrontation on the island have justified Beijing’s strategy of selective engagement with the two main parties within Taiwan. The state of cross-Strait relations, therefore, has become a by-product of volatile party politics on the island. As speculation about Taiwan's future mounts, this book will interest scholars, China-watchers, and policymakers.