A Study Of Elite Transformation In Contemporary Taiwan

The developmental pattern of Chinese Taiwan is a special representative of East-Asian modernization. Since the Second World War, Kuomintang authorities have achieved economic development and political transition from authoritarian regime to "democratic regime". Taiwan's political transition has exerted profound impacts on the transformation of political elites. In the meantime, political elites in Taiwan have also promoted or constrained the process of Taiwan's political transition. Political transition and political elites are closely connected and complementary. To some extent, Taiwan's political transition depends on the decision of political elites and requires them to make corresponding transformation, which aims at satisfying the demands of political participation of the masses. Thereby, the transformation of Taiwan's political elites becomes an important perspective of analyzing political landscape, economic development and social changes in Taiwan.The concept of elites can be defined in a broad and narrow sense. Broadly speaking, elites can be referred to political elites who have certain governing power, political figures who have extensive influence in non-power system (for example, the gentry), and leaders in informal society as well as people from all walks of life who have political influences in modern society, including the intellectuals. The dissertation defines political elites as a neutral concept from the narrow perspective. In the dissertation, political elites mean political figures who have direct political power in Taiwan, that is, those that are recruited by political elections and political appointments and have the dominant influence in the authorative organs.The dissertation makes a tentative and systematic analysis of the historical evolution of political elites in contemporary Taiwan from 1949 to 2008, focusing on how the political elites have achieved the notable transformation from simplification to pluralization, from identity-orientation to achievement-orientation, then to election- orientation. The dissertation penetrates into analyzing the variation and the characteristics revealed from the structure and behavior of political elites in Taiwan, generalizing the common and special traits of the transformation of political elites in Taiwan. All these researches are conducive to the understanding of the intricate political phenomena and the prediction of the future of Taiwan. It is no doubt that the analysis of political elites in Taiwan has practical and theoretical implications.The dissertation is divided into three parts:the introduction, the main body (from Chapter One to Chapter Five) and the conclusion.The introduction concentrates on research background and significance as well as the current situation of the research concerning political elites. It also points out the basic research paths and research methods adopted by the author.The main body consists of two parts and includes five chapters. Part One includes Chapter One and Chapter Two. These two chapters are the theoretical deduction and background analysis of the dissertation, which provides the basis for making in-depth analysis of political elites in Taiwan. Chapter One reviews the historical development of elite theory, compares three kinds of elite theories and establishes the appropriate theoretical basis of analyzing the evolutionary process of political elites in Taiwan. The Chapter puts forward the analytical framework of the dissertation, that is, the study of political elites from the perspective of political transition. Concretely speaking, the dissertation explores how political transition influences the way of elite recruitment, how the elite structure and party system have been made relevant changes, and how the new behavior of political elites is formed. In Chapter Two, political transition is seen as the historical context of the formation and development of political elites in Taiwan. Chapter Two discusses the actual factors of stimulating the transformation of political elites in Taiwan from the international and interior perspectives, sequentially generalizing the characteristics of Taiwan's political transition. Part Two includes Chapter Three, Chapter Four and Chapter Five. Chapter Three focuses on the evolution of elite recruitment during the authoritative stage, the earlier and later stages of political transition, explores the historical causes of why the ruling class adopts different modes of elite recruitment and analyzes the actual effects brought about by the change of the modes of elite recruitment. Chapter Four views Taiwan's political transition as a watershed, generalizes the structural evolution and characteristics of political elites in contemporary Taiwan from the perspectives of elite types and elite integration and probes into the deep-level causes of the structural changes of political elites. Chapter Five makes a profound analysis of the behavior of political elites in Taiwan with the focus of behavioral change and behavioral characteristics and analyzes the future political orientation of the elites.The final part of the dissertation is the conclusion. The Chapter summarizes the content of each chapter, interprets the conclusion from the theoretical perspective, and points out the direction of future research. The author argues that the transformation of political elites in Taiwan possesses their own traits, which is determined by the particularity of Taiwan's political transition. During the process of political transition, the modes of elite recruitment have been changed. Thereby, political elites in Taiwan have experienced the extraordinary transformation from commission-type or resistance-type elites to election-type elites. Furthermore, in view of special social and cultural environments and complicated political background in Taiwan, "Black Gold" politics and "local faction" politics intermingling with elite transformation, elite behavior has gradually develop towards pluralization and vulgarization. It is a gradually dominant way for political elites to acquire the maximal political interests and political power by virtue of election. The trend makes parochial sectional interests and election behavior constrain each other, which results in the short-sighted view of social orientation. The transformation of political elites in Taiwan not only exerts certain positive impacts on Taiwan's political transition to some extent, but also brings about turbulence and uncertainty to Taiwan society. A truly-balanced and ordered democracy has not yet formed in Taiwan.