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Abstract
The Taiwan Provincial Council is the subject of this study. Based on the KMT's nomination strategy and election results in the two provincial councilor elections in 1972 and 1977, it revisits and revises the KMT's factional substitution policy of the 1970s. During the 1972 local elections, the KMT aggressively promoted factional replacement in the election of magistrates, mayors, and Taiwan Provincial Councilors. The KMT eliminated political figures with local factional backgrounds on a large scale in the name of promoting young talents. With respect to the Taiwan Provincial Councilors, the replacement was intended to eliminate Taiwan Provincial Councilors elected prior to 1968 in order to suppress the inter-county local faction that existed in the Taiwan Provincial Council at the time. Most Taiwan Provincial Councilors who had served for more than two terms were not re-elected, thereby generating a significant generational shift in the makeup of Taiwan Provincial Council. The KMT’s control over the Taiwan Provincial Council was thus strengthened. Despite a significant reduction in mobilization power due to the KMT's suppression of local factions, the party's political base was unaffected by the absence of a strong national opposition at the time. During the 1977 local elections, the KMT continued to suppress local factions while giving support to KMT members who had no factional background. The local factions were no longer as effective as they had been during the local elections in 1972. Except for a few counties and cities, no local factions abandoned the KMT, and their capacity for mobilization improved. However, factions outside the party successfully mobilized over 7% of new voters who had not voted previously. This resulted in unprecedented setbacks for the KMT, including the defeat of several Taiwan provincial councilors from local factions. Taiwan has since formed an opposition capable of mobilizing the entire country.
Abstract
Farmers' Associations are meant to be self-government associations dedicated to the service of farmers. However, in reality Farmers' associations have taken on strong political overtones, and their effect-tiveness has been affected by this. In elections for all levels of public officials, Farmers' Association have actively campaigned for political parties and/or local factions. In elections for officers of the Farmers' associations, political forces have used bribery and violence to try to gain control of the associations. This has causes the Farmers' associations to become the site of political struggles, and in the process the welfare of farmers has become merely an empty slogan. How have Farmers' Associations evolved into political bodies? What is the goal of the political forces associated with Farmers' Associations? How do Farmers' Associations use their originations to mobilize support? Have the recent runs on Farmers' Associations credit unions been related to politics? These are the main questions that this paper will address. The political overtones of Farmers' Associations dates to the Japanese era. The colonial government treated Farmers' Associations as a tool to control political attitudes and recover capital from farmers' villages. The post-war KMT government overhauled the system, but the basic idea of controlling farmers through Farmers' Associations did not change. The KMT used the Farmers' Associations' credit unions to gain the support for local factions, which gained a local monopoly of politi-cal and financial resources. These abundant financial resources and the well developed orginational resources the Farmers' Association pos-sessed assured that local political forces would compete to participate in the system. The Taichung County and Kaohsiung County examples prove that both pro-KMT and anti-KMT factions strove to gain control of the Farmers' Associations. However, the involvement of politics in Farmers' Associations has downgraded the original mission to serve farmers. Recification of this problem would require a process of depo-liticization and the independence of credit unions from the Farmers' associations.
Abstract
For many decades, Taiwan's local politics has been regarded as faction politics. Thus, to understand the development of Taiwan's local politics, one must explore the operation of local factions. Since 1980s, many scholars in political science as well as sociology have begun to investigate Taiwan's factionalism in terms of Clientelism. And the focuses of those academic researches were mostly on (1) the interactions among local factions, KMT, and the state apparatus, (2) the formation, evolution, and operations of factions, and (3) the monopoly or oligopoly of local economy by the factions. However, along with the transition from authoritarianism to democracy in Taiwan, the nature of local factions has changed dramatically: "money politics" and "mafia politics" have gradually been amalgamated into local politics, and traditional factions could not be seen as "local" factions anymore. When the Taiwan Provincial Government is vastly downsized after 1998, the faction politics is expected to play even more important role not only in local but also in national politics. The goal of this paper, therefore, is to re-examine the traditional clientelist-approach to the study of Taiwan's factionalism, and to investigate the changing role of local factions during the transition period.
Abstract
This paper examines the major parties' vote-equalizing strate-gies and the impacts of these strategies on candidates' vote-distribu-tion under a SNTV electoral system. From this perspective, this study tries to observe party competition and party politics in Taiwan since the 1980s. Based on a study on legislative elections from 1983 to 1995, this paper shows some research findings. First, the KMT uses the local factions and "responsibility zone system" to mobilize and allocate potential votes to her candidates. Therefore, the vote-distribution of the KMT candidates tends to be concentrated on some parts of the electoral district. On the other hand, the DPP and NP cannot be helped by the local organizations so that the vote shares of their candidates tend to be scattered across the district. Secondly, from a longitudinal perspective, the vote shares of the KMT candidates are getting scattered. This tendency has become evident since the end of the 1980s, when the opposition parties were gradually organized and institutionalized. Thirdly, the influence of the local factions has gradually become weak because of the devel-opment of social economy and the emergence of the opposition par-ties. All of these tendencies show that the KMT's campaign system which depends on vote allocation, local factions and grass-root organizations has become shaky.
Abstract
It is well recognized that intra-party competition marks a major consequence of the single nontransferable vote under multi-member district system(SNTV-MMD), currently used in Taiwan's legislature elections. A key issue in Taiwan's electoral study is thus how candi-dates, especially those from the same party, divide their votes a-mong various categories that differentiate the voters. Since the data set revealing this information is usually a large matrix of categorical variables, existing multivariate statistical methods are either inap-plicable or inadequate. This paper demonstrates that correspond-dence analysis is an appropriate statistical tool to solve this prob-lem. This method treats an n × m matrix as n vectors in an m-di-mensional space, and finds a k-dimensional subspace that maxi-mizes the variance of the projections of the n vectors. Utilizing this method, this paper first illustrates the Chi-square distance between candidates and the sub-district regions. It then designs indexes to describe the degree of vote concentration for each candidate, fac-tion, and party, and correlate it with the electoral performances of these actors. Statistical analysis indicates that, given the same vote share, inertia, and dimensionality, overnominating one candidate decreases the seat share of the KMT by 11.73%.
Abstract
The employment of the party primary has been controversial within the Kuomintang(KMT),critics charging it with some flaws: intra-party factions hindered the nominated candidates by support-ing opposition candidates in general elections; those who won in primary elections proved not necessarily electable in general elec-tions, since party identifiers were different from the electorate; it frequently led to sharper power struggles; it worsened the illegal practice of violence and vote-buying; aspirants underwent two cam-paigns for one election, spending energy and money twice; Taiwan's political climate seemed inapt for the practice of U.S.-style primary election system. By analyzing relevant data, I argue that the core problem of the party primary was its lack of fairness because KMT party cadres tried to monopolize the candidate selec-tion and thus failed to remain neutral. Throughout this essay and in the conclusion, I note that any political party appears likely to open its candidate selection practice in an attempt to continue its political dominance.
Abstract
This research is focused on the relationship between the disparitiesof urban-suburb development and political factions in TaipeiCounty.We hypothesize that the more urbanization of a town or avillage,the more political influence of a local faction in it.We usealmost all the avaliable indicators to measure the urbanization,which is the independent variable of this research.And,we calculatethe vote rate of every local political faction in 1998 TaipeiCounty Councilman election and Town Mayor election,as the indicesof their political influence,which is the dependent variable ofthis work.The finding of this research will be useful to systematizethe modeling of Taiwan local faction analysis.
Abstract
It is believed that almost every Town's District Committee of Mediation in Taiwan is dominated by local factions and the committee members are the important figures within their factions. In this research, based on the assumption that the Committee members are convenient to access political, social and economic interests, we hypothesize that in Taipei County the more powerful a local political faction is the more intervention it has toward the District Committee of Mediation. Therefore, we use 3 models to examine the relationship between local political factions and the District Committee of Mediation by statistic datum, such as the amounts of mediation cases, the successful rate of mediation and soon. However, through depth interviews to 8 committee members and 3 clergies in different Towns of Taipei County which provides not only the quantitative explanations but the qualitative analysis for this research. The author expects that students of Taiwan's local political factions research will have mo0re refined models contributed by this paper to duplicate further studies.
Abstract
At present, the research of local factions in Taiwan seems to have omitted the in-depth study of local faction politics at off-shore island. In addition, lesser effort has been made on the declining issue of local factions in the past years. In this study, the historical and structural approach as well as field study method has been adopted. With the help of historical document and data collected from the in-depth interview, the researcher tried to discuss the formation and declining of Penghu local factions in the post-war. The following findings are emerged from this research: (1) Due to the pre-existing inter-group differential and competition of autonomy election, the competition among factions were emerged and the Penghu local factions were generated. In addition, the only competition field is the election for congress of county or province because the position of county mayor were controlled by the military force. (2) The faction itself is lack of strong structure because of the scarceness of Penghu local resources. Therefore, when the leader of faction has been changed or the members of faction were facing the conflict in profit could emerge the split and reorganization of faction. (3) In 1980s, the Penghu traditional political factions could not make adjustment to the rise of businessman-like politics and loss the influence to the local area. In addition, there had not been any political oppositions in Penghu during the martial law era. As a result, the relationship of alliance between Kuomintang and faction did not exist, which the local factions were served as the counter acting pressure of political oppositions for Kuomintang. In this case, local faction has been declined gradually.
Abstract
It is generally believed that some political factions are patrons to gangsters in Taiwan's local politics. In order to investigate this proposition we chose Taipei County as a case study. We define the gangsters are those who were convicted by the Preventive Provisions Against Organized Crimes. There are 1 4 this sort of persons right now in Taipei and Tauyuan jails. We have interviewed with all these gangsters. Complementarily, we also have interviewed with 8 police officials whose major duty is responsible to gang affairs. Moreover, we have interviewed with other 19 people, mostly who are politicians in Taipei country. The informants, especially gang criminals, confirm that within the campaigning, they help to do vote-buying, mobilize voters and consolidate voters' supports for some certain candidates. More importantly, some of these candidates are politicians in local factions. But, politicians in any local faction might be gangsters; local political factions are never gangs. Local faction and gang are not the head and tail of a coin. Therefore, the determinant of Taipei County politics is still at the hands of local factions and not belonging to gangs. However, the coefficient relationship between the candidates with gang background and their vote rates are significantly positive. It reveals that there is a serious problem in Taiwan's local politics of gangster's participation into election. Paradoxically, there is no significant coefficient among the dependent variable--vote rate and the independent variables-gang background, political party and faction. It tells us that even a gangster with the nomination from a political party or in the recommendation of any local faction may not have benefits from it. Gangsters win elections only because of themselves. To conclude, if a political party or a local political faction wants to make a clear-cut demarcation with gangsters, it is possible and will not get damage from it.
Abstract
Owing to the political transition from the type of authoritarian to democratic system in Taiwan since 1980’ s, the study of democratized transition has become an important issue in political academic discipline. However, there is scarce deeper exploration at Penghu area around the related studies. Therefore, the main purpose of this research, under the analysis on the process of democratization in Taiwan, will examine the force change among the local factions and explore the impact on the local political ecology in Penghu. The following findings are emerged from this research. (1) Democratization reveals authoritarian domination had weakened for manipulative and coordinative power at local society, and makes a more institutionalized election pattern to be a structural basis for local political power operation as well. It also highly enhanced the number of candidates on elections and makes the traditional “bi-factionalism pattern” transformed into a multi-regional competition pattern in Penghu. (2) After the governor election in mid-1980’s and by accompanying with the effect of KMT’ s “localized policy” and abolishing Martial Law, the military unit had gradually lost its inherent power for a leading role in election. In addition to the challenge from DPP at the period of time, the feature of “the nominated was equal to get elected” by KMT had collapsed and it had established firmly a political type of party competition. (3) Even if democratized transition boosted the political type of party competition, the influence of existing parties and military units had been gradually loosing. By contrast, local factions based on the combination of family, geography, and social relationship as well as burgeoning politicalcommercial sector- “Lin Pie” had become the main characters of regional political ecology in Penghu.
Abstract
In the year 2000, the first transfer of central political power in Taiwan, had a deep impact on and influenced not only the regional factions which had used to rely on the Kuo-Ming-Tang (KMT), but also had a bearing on the new government claimed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The point of view on local politics has changed. Local factions in Chang-hua County cannot depart from this impact either. The Hong-pai (red-faction) and the Bai-pai (white faction) the two main faction’s influence in Chang-hua County has been reduced. These two factions used to provide strong mobilizational ability in the said county. Due to fact that the regime they once served, did not continue to exist over a long period of time. A severe shortage of mobilization forced the Hong-pai and the Bai-pai to departmentalize their organizations and to individualize the mobilization. The research for this paper discovered that Chang-hua County has no comprehensive influence over regional factions at present, because politicians progressively have no collective spirit to identify with a particular faction. However, in order to win a local election victory or to strive for the allotment of abundant political and financial resources, politicians frequently tried to forge alliances. This has been brought about to dissolve the boundaries between factions, and factions are being pushed further out. Also, disruptions in the KMT in the past years, encourage them to establish party member's and the regional faction's identities. In other words, the disagreement among the KMT has decreased, while increasing within the DPP. As the DPP won the presidential election, cabinets not only master the authority of lower level governmental administration, but also step in on administrative matters. Competition and inconsistent policies between cabinets and regional factions gradually became more drastic. It is difficult to get away from the disagreement as the DPP won the election.
Abstract
The axis of this paper is legislators' reelections, and the purpose is to explore legislators' reelections under SNTV electoral system. At the beginning, this paper discusses the fourth legislators' reelections in the fifth legislative election then examines the relationship between the major four factors, including party, personal performance, local faction and constituency, and legislators' reelections in order to find out the important variables of affecting legislators' reelections. Finally, this paper will use binary logistic model to build ”the model of legislators' reelections” for comparing the degree of all the variables affecting legislators' reelections. Research findings show that among all the four factors, party and personal performance are the most critical ones affecting the fourth legislators' reelections in the fifth legislative election. Speaking precisely, the nomination of party and legislators' performances (including legislative performance, services of the constituency and the news-exposures in term), which compare with the other legislators' in the same constituency are the important variables affecting legislators' reelection.
Abstract
During the authoritarian period, the typical organizational structure of clientelism was the pyramid shape. It provided several advantages for the clientelist elites and the KMT. The limited openness of electoral politics helped maintain the pyramid-shaped organizational structure of clientelism. The structure of broker organizations is one of the main factors shaping the mobilization capacity of clientelism. The better the brokerage organizational structure, the easier it is for patrons to mobilize brokers and clients. The more fragmented the brokerage organizational structure is, the more difficult it is for patrons to integrate them. Fully competitive electoral politics increases the competition among clientelist elites. The competition speeds the trend toward fragmentation of brokerage organizations. During the authoritarian period, local factions rarely supported more than one candidate at the same time in elections. Therefore, local factions did not face the coordination problems they would later face under the SNTV system. The KMT did encounter these coordination problems. On one hand, it used local factions to differentiate candidates. On the other hand, a certain amount of hard-core supporters helped the KMT divide votes optimally among its candidates. Fully competitive electoral politics gave clientelist elites an opportunity to access the state resources, which were no longer limited to the local level. However, under the Taiwanese specific electoral institution, Single Nontransferable Vote (SNTV) system, the new competitive politics not only increased inter-factional conflicts within the KMT, but also intra-factional conflicts. These intra-factional conflicts precipitated the breakdown of the factional organizational structure.
