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Past IssuesCompeting for Public Support
 Government and Politics in Taiwan In a data-driven analysis of Taiwan’s modern political history, an academic uncovers the story of a democracy that has grown more responsive to the public through party competition and institutional reform.
In recent years, democracy has taken a drubbing in some academic circles. Scholars have openly questioned whether the economic leaps made by countries like Singapore and mainland China are perhaps emblematic of a successful nondemocratic model of political organization. In such societies, economic growth is given a privileged place over political freedoms. The result is the delivery of general prosperity unhampered by the partisan political bickering found in democratic societies. In the authoritarian model, the state nimbly directs capital and satisfies the public desire for material well-being even as it suppresses political participation.
There are two notable problems with this argument, however. Firstly, it assumes that mainland China and other nondemocratic governments will not encounter the economic crises that have bedeviled other advanced economies, that their day in the sun is permanently sustainable. Secondly—and more troublingly for anyone who views humans as something more than economic actors—it assumes that people can be bought off with high growth rates at the expense of the political participation, representative government and free speech that democratic societies strive to protect.
In Government and Politics in Taiwan, Dafydd Fell lays out a powerful example of how a state can successfully provide both rapid economic growth and a lively democratic political system. The feat is all the more impressive since Fell, a senior lecturer in Taiwan studies at the University of London’s School of African and Oriental Studies, places the focus firmly on the available facts. Fell eschews a unified theoretical approach to understanding Taiwan’s political system, and presents instead a fact-driven series of chapters that retrace the changing of Taiwan’s institutions and political life. Like a pointillist painting, an elegant portrait emerges from the multitude of individual points, and it is one that depicts the workings of a successful democratic society. President Ma Ying-jeou attends a rally on Taipei’s Ketagalan Boulevard in January this year as part of his successful bid for re-election. (Photo by Hao Chen-tai) Pros of Party Competition
From Fell’s many diverse points, some powerful narratives can be pieced together. Chief among them is the successful evolution of party politics. In the author’s retelling of the opening of Taiwan’s political system to multiparty competition, he takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride of the political ups and downs for Taiwan’s major political parties and the various smaller parties that have risen and fallen. Fell, who has also written a separate book on party politics in Taiwan, is particularly strong at charting the divergence and then convergence of Taiwan’s two main political parties, the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
In the early days after the opening up of Taiwan’s political system, the pent-up frustrations of independence activists contrasted with the KMT’s historic focus on mainland China and resulted in a highly polarized political situation. “For instance, by 1991 the DPP and KMT were poles apart on national identity issues,” Fell writes, “with the former proposing the establishment of a Republic of Taiwan, and the latter talking about unification under the National Unification Guidelines.”
Fell shows how domestic political concerns often determined the role of divisive identity issues in elections and governance. With the defeat of the KMT in 2000 in a three-man race, for example, Taiwan witnessed its first presidential transition to an opposition party that had long aspired to formal independence for Taiwan. In recognition of the limited mandate that the new president, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the DPP, had won in the poll (he received only 39 percent of the vote), Chen took a moderate stance on the independence issue in order to reassure a public worried about the economy and national security. Chen was also concerned about the possibility of causing a rift with the United States, which could be drawn into a war if a push for formal independence sparked a conflict with Beijing.
A rally at the campaign headquarters of former President Chen Shui-bian in Kaohsiung County in January 2004 (Photo by Central News Agency) Chen’s initial moderation reflected the political reality of limited support from the electorate. Yet by 2004, when the DPP was struggling against a reunified KMT ticket, Chen reverted to identity politics, polarizing the election to stir the DPP base. Much of Chen’s second term was colored by divisive identity issues that soured any interparty goodwill. Chen faced a Legislative Yuan dominated by the KMT and its legislative allies, who were increasingly unwilling to cooperate with the Office of the President. “As the DPP was constantly frustrated in its domestic reform agenda,” Fell writes, “it often fell back on employing Taiwan identity appeals.”
On the surface, this presents a bleak and unproductive spectacle. Indeed, many commentators at the time argued that a government divided between a KMT-dominated legislature and a DPP president was unworkable. Naturally, this view was held by the DPP, which hoped to convince voters that progress could be made only if the electorate also handed the DPP a majority in the legislature. This would be quite natural in a parliamentary system, in which a prime minister by definition is the leader of a parliamentary majority. In a presidential system, however, like that of the United States, not only do presidents have to contend with an equally powerful legislative branch, but voters often award these branches to different parties. At times, this blunts party extremes and forces compromise and cooperation in the passage of legislation; more often it creates legislative gridlock.
Despite the drawbacks of a presidential system, it does require legislators who disagree on most issues to find common ground if they wish to show voters that they are working in the public interest. Under Taiwan’s first experience of divided government, this unfamiliar dynamic achieved some notable successes. “Particularly significant,” Fell writes, “were the expansion of social welfare schemes, gender equality legislation, improved labour rights, anti-corruption measures and constitutional reform of the electoral system.”
This is a remarkable achievement for two parties that were bitterly divided on fundamental issues and had little history of cross-party cooperation. Although support for Chen eventually collapsed due to a series of corruption cases, the legacy of the DPP’s eight-year control of the Office of the President had some surprisingly beneficial results for Taiwan’s political system. The DPP learned that it could not survive solely on identity politics without producing positive results on bread-and-butter issues, which were of greater importance to the average voter. The KMT, in response to the DPP’s electoral successes, adopted a more Taiwan-centric approach to the divisive identity question. “The major changes for the KMT,” Fell writes, “were that after 2000 it gave much greater emphasis to economic issues, dropped its attacks on Taiwan independence and employed a mixed identity message, with appeals to both Chinese and Taiwanese identities.”
Then DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen, center, speaks at a campaign rally in Taipei in December 2011. (Photo by Hsu Shih-mou) This trend has only accelerated in recent years, with both parties modifying policies that did not receive broad support from the public. In the run-up to the presidential election in January of this year, for example, the KMT took on a more Taiwan-centric focus, attempted to make inroads with voters in opposition territory and reassured the public over its limited engagement with mainland China, ruling out any political negotiations that would infringe on Taiwan’s sovereignty. The DPP’s candidate, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), attempted to shift the debate to questions of economic inequality, social justice and the environment, even as she played down the party’s stance on independence.
In part, the increasing moderation on cross-strait relations displayed by both parties indicates a growing pragmatism. Yet, it also reflects the melancholy fact that Taiwan’s relationship with mainland China cannot be addressed outside an international context. Missteps could spark war, and yet even warmer cross-strait relations cause a certain queasiness, since Beijing still hopes to pull Taiwan into its political orbit.
Breaking Out of the Birdcage
This constrained environment, sometimes described as Taiwan’s “international birdcage,” has prompted a rethinking of positions in both parties. The failure of the DPP under Chen to break out of the birdcage pushed the DPP toward a more pragmatic position on cross-strait relations. This was evident in this year’s presidential election, in which the DPP’s Tsai promised a thorough review of cross-strait agreements under the KMT but also indicated that she would not repeal them.
Interestingly, in the days before the election, Tsai floated the idea of a coalition government and argued for a “Taiwan consensus,” a sort of interparty united front on how to handle further cross-strait talks. In part this was just politics. Despite pre-election polls showing the DPP neck-and-neck with the KMT, Tsai’s last-minute proposal suggests that internal DPP polling showed that support for Tsai was flagging, as the election quickly proved. Importantly, it also indicates that the DPP was willing to moderate its stance even further on relations with mainland China in order to reflect the wishes of voters. While both parties risked upsetting their base, the election showed that KMT and DPP politicians were willing to approach this most divisive issue with pragmatism and moderation. This convergence is a remarkably positive affirmation of the moderating effects of interparty competition.
Two visitors from mainland China, left, shop in Taipei. Support for cross-strait economic exchanges has increased in Taiwan, according to author Dafydd Fell. (Photo by Chang Su-ching) In his research on identity questions and attitudes toward engagement with mainland China, Fell illustrates that even as self-identification with Taiwan has risen dramatically, so too has support for cross-strait economic exchanges that benefit Taiwan’s economy. In other words, even as voters’ identification with their Chinese heritage has waned as a political determinant, their desire to take a pragmatic approach to trade, transportation and tourism with mainland China has increased.
Despite the KMT and DPP having shown a growing consensus on cross-strait attitudes, Fell argues that greater public input or legislative oversight would have given greater legitimacy to agreements reached between Taipei and Beijing. “From a democratic perspective,” Fell writes, “the KMT government has been less successful at subjecting new agreements to democratic accountability.”
While he rightly points out that the KMT had a mandate to reach agreements such as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, essentially a cross-strait free trade agreement signed in 2010, because the party specifically ran on this platform in the 2008 election, public or legislative participation could have quieted some worries in Taiwan. Both the DPP and some KMT legislators argued that the Legislative Yuan should have played a larger role in reviewing the agreements, while the administration considered it a prerogative of the Office of the President and Taiwan’s cross-strait negotiators. “This is rather odd,” Fell writes, “when we consider that the KMT holds such an overwhelming legislative majority.”
If Fell would like to see a greater oversight role for Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, he would also like to see further structural reforms that would allow for a more robust parliamentary system, one that would weaken the grip of the two larger parties and lower barriers for smaller parties. He confesses to a particular fondness for Taiwan’s smaller parties, and examines in detail constitutional changes that effectively diminished their ability to compete with the DPP and KMT.
Supporters of People First Party presidential candidate James Soong gather in Taichung, central Taiwan in 2011. (Photo by Central News Agency) In 2005, the Republic of China’s Constitution was changed to reduce the number of seats in the unicameral Legislative Yuan from 225 to 113, and a new voting system was adopted. Under the old system, legislators were chosen in a single non-transferable vote in multimember districts. If a district had six members, for example, then the top six vote-getters were elected from the initial vote. Under the new system, legislators are elected individually in first-past-the-post, single-member districts. Fell argues that there are more wasted votes in this system, since votes for the losing candidate count for nothing, whereas under the old system the runner-up candidates could also receive seats.
The new voting system resulted in some very clear trends in the 2008 legislative election, the first held under the new rules. The first was that smaller parties were almost entirely marginalized, since they could no longer pick up seats by coming in second or third, and their candidates generally could not compete with the larger parties in terms of organization and money. The second was that the rules unintentionally gave the KMT an advantage over the DPP in terms of proportional representation. “The KMT gained three quarters of the seats with just 50 percent of the vote in 2008,” Fell notes, “while the DPP increased its vote share to almost 37 percent but saw its seat share fall to 24 percent.”
The reason for the KMT’s increase had to do with more effective strategy and organization. KMT-won districts tended to be won with fewer votes, while the vote was heavily concentrated in DPP-won districts. This accounts for the disparity between vote share and seat share. Another factor favoring the KMT was the nature of districting. The constitutional changes stipulated that each of Taiwan’s counties and cities must be represented by at least one legislator. This means that counties with small populations are often over-represented in terms of legislative power. Taiwan’s four least populated counties—Lienchiang, Penghu, Kinmen and Taitung—regularly support either the KMT or legislative allies of the KMT. Moreover, six of the 113 legislative seats are reserved for Taiwan’s aboriginal peoples, although they represent only 2 percent of the population. This constituency also heavily supports the KMT or its legislative allies. Taiwan Solidarity Union legislators condemn the failure of the law-making body to pass the central government’s general budget bill in 2007. (Photo by Central News Agency) DPP Puzzle
Fell addresses an important puzzle when he asks why the DPP, which was in power at the time of the constitutional changes and had the most delegates at the convention, agreed to the electoral changes that ultimately reduced its legislative standing. “The DPP’s ability to gain over 50 percent of the vote share for the first time in the 2004 presidential election had convinced Chen that the DPP could win a majority under a single member district system,” Fell writes, adding that “the DPP’s calculations were probably based on the prospect that there would still be a divided Pan Blue camp.” The pan-blue coalition includes the KMT, People First Party and New Party, while the pan-greens include the DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union.
Fell recommends further reform of the Legislative Yuan to remedy the disparity between voter percentages and seat share. This seems unlikely, however, since the KMT retains a majority in the legislature and since the DPP supported the 2005 constitutional changes. It should be noted, however, that even under the current rules, both parties have the ability to pluck legislative districts from their opponents. In this year’s Legislative Yuan election, for example, the DPP won Penghu for the first time, although the county had always voted for the KMT in the past. This was achieved through old-fashioned grassroots campaigning. The DPP is still a young party, trying to catch up with the KMT in terms of organization and strategy. However, since many KMT districts tend to have a large minority of DPP supporters, there is no reason to think that the DPP will not one day win control of the Legislative Yuan under the current system. Indeed, adoption of more centrist policies has helped to broaden the appeal of both parties.
While Fell laments the diminished standing of smaller parties, his study shows the remarkable ability of Taiwan’s two major political parties to include new voices and to reflect the changing demands of the electorate. His research presents a portrait of a democratic system in which neither major party can win a national election without a platform that works toward greater prosperity and protects the hard-won freedoms that allow voters to reward or punish parties based on the efficacy of their policies.
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Copyright © 2012 by Robert Green |
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