The Evolution Of The Party System In Taiwan

Party system is a kind of political system characterized by party interactions, which mainly refers to the relationship between the parties that have chance to win the power/leadership or participate in power/leadership.Kuo Min Tang (KMT) originated from the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society and is deeply influenced by China's traditional politics and culture. After the KMT lost its power, it practices one-party authoritarian and the party-state system, monopolizing political resources and power. After the 1980s, Party system transformation started in Taiwan. With the rising of the out-power party, together with the"Party Revolution"and"Constitutional Revolution"practiced and promoted by KMT, the party politics, with election competition and political balance as the main contents, which takes the form of western democracy politics, became the major form for Taiwan politics operation. This not only breaks the original politics power and resources allocation framework, but also leads to major changes to the relationships among the ruling party and out-power parties.In the process of its shaping and growth, Taiwan party politics get strong characteristics due to Taiwan's special history background and evolution, as well as the impacts from constitutional reform, national identity, inter-province conflicts, ethnic group politics etc. However, Taiwan party politics eventually has promoted democracy in Taiwan, though in the form of western party politics. In the process of party system evolution, many parties face similar problems, such as economic development, the rising of the people's democracy awareness and wider political involvement, the impact of economic reform to political system etc. In terms of how to address and guide these issues, there are a lot of lessons for a ruling party to learn from Taiwan party politics. From the perspective of party culture, Taiwan's shares the same root and source with the Mainland in history and culture, so it's undeniable that Taiwan party politics provide a lot of experiences to borrow too.Taiwan is a part of China. Though Taiwan's democracy may not be labeled an example for any ethnic Chinese society, it established a special case where a party gains the power through political election. Therefore, Taiwan party system is a topic worthy of study, which is also a sensitive major topic with both academic value and cotemporary significance.This dissertation consists of introduction, text and conclusion remarks.The introduction includes: (1) the significance of the topic; (2) an introduction of current status of Taiwan study, both at home and abroad; (3) the theory basis and research method of this thesis, as well as new point of views presented in the dissertation.The text is composed of five chapters:Chapter I: Taiwan's"Party-State System"under One-Party Monopoly Ruling. Based on the history and information, this part studies the KMT dictatorship after KMT moved/escaped to Taiwan, and outlines the features of the"party-leading-government"system; based on Giovanni Satori's theory, it defines the characteristics of the party-state system, and believes that the political system of that period is categorized as"party-state system"under one-party monopoly ruling Further, it analyzes why it was necessary to practice such system at that special time of history.Chapter II: The Transformation of"Party-State System". It mainly introduces the background for the"Party-State System"transformation, including Taiwan politics, economics, external and internal factors, the emergence of"Politics Revolution", and the impact and significance of the establishment of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to Taiwan party system.Chapter III: The KMT-Dominated System. This chapter streamlines from three different angles the KMT's party system evolution during 1986's"Politics Revolution"to the ruling party alternative in 2000.Chapter IV: Two Rounds of Party Alternative– Towards Two-Party System? By analyzing the 2004 and 2008 Taiwan"president"elections, and the two coalitions of"Pan-Blue"and"Pan-Green", this chapter mainly discusses and predicts the trend of Two-Party system for the Taiwan party system.Chapter V: The Features of Taiwan Party System Shaping/Evolution. This part mainly discusses and probes the impacts caused by national identity, inter-province conflict,"constitutional"revolution, election system to the shaping/evolution of Taiwan's party system.