Elite transformation and democratization in Taiwan (China)

This dissertation examines Taiwan's democratic transition, how it occurred, how it is best modeled, and whether Taiwan can now be considered a consolidated democracy. I employ elite theory and focus on elite transformation. I highlight two important but insufficiently studied developments among Taiwan elites that I believe constituted watershed events leading to an elite transformation from basic disunity to unity: the National Affairs Conference (NAC) of June 28-July 4, 1990, and the National Development Conference (NDC) of December 23-28, 1996.; I first examine Taiwan's elite unity and differentiation and argue that elites before 1990 were best characterized as divided. Under martial law, the KMT ruthlessly repressed opposition elites, and the latter relied on extra-legal methods and mass mobilizations to challenge the regime. Especially during the 1950's and 1960's, elite differentiation was limited because the mainlander-military-ideologues dominated the party state and because the society was still quite underdeveloped.; An elite transformation began after Lee Teng-hui succeeded to the presidency in 1988 and engineered a breakthrough in the NAC by cooperating with the Democratic Progressive Party. The NAC contributed to the integration of anti-system elites including former political prisoners and exiles. It also fostered a limited consensus among competing elite camps regarding a reform agenda. The period after the NAC witnessed considerable elite differentiation as Taiwanese and elected representatives gradually replaced the homogeneous mainlander-military elite. However, the new democratic regime remained unstable because elites continued to be split over the entangled issues of national identity and constitutional reform. Elites in Taiwan are best described as fragmented during the first half of the 1990's and the democratic regime is best viewed as unconsolidated during those years.; A full consensual unification of elites became possible only during the cross-Straits crisis of 1995-96. In that crisis, competing elite camps reached consensus on the national identity issue and they agreed on the essentials of constitutional reforms before, during, and following the NDC in late 1996. Political developments since the NDC have shown that elite behavior is restrained by consensus and this makes the prospects for Taiwan's democratic consolidation bright.