A Study Of Taiwan Environmental Movements Since The 1980s

The year 1980s not only witnessed an economic miracle and the development of political transition in Taiwan, but also experienced the glorious history of social movements, among which the anti-pollution protestation, had initiated a precedent for the other types of movement. Taiwan's environmental movement has been one of the most vibrant social movements in Asia, including the complex issues, new practices, and the advanced experiences, are walking in the forefront in this region. Taiwan's environmental movement shows a multi-faceted feature in its process. The political liberalizations in 1987 and the institutionalization of legislative assembly in 1993 are two important milestones. Accordingly, this article divides the Taiwan's environmental movement into three stages——the germination, the transformation and the institutionalization. Later, it shows the different characteristics in these three periods, the role of various participants in the movements, as well as the interaction among the political transition, the growing environmental awareness and the environmental movements.The development of Taiwan's environmental movement is highly linked with the social, economic and political backgrounds. Any explanations of environmental issues would be incomplete without understanding these connections. Therefore, this study combines the theories from the sociology and political science, trying to make a comprehensive, multi-angle analysis of the environmental movement in Taiwan. Generally, this paper is based on Carl Polanyi's "embedded market" theory, combined with the "resource mobilization" and the "political opportunity structure", to discuss the topic. The first theory is used to analyze the "spontaneous resist" resulted by the long ignorance of environmental protection in Taiwan's economic development pattern; the second theory explains how Taiwan's environmentalists mobilizing supporters, advocating issues and other activities; and the third theory explores the different political opportunities and constraints for the environmental movement before and after the "Lift of Martial Law". By a considerate analysis of the process of Taiwan's environmental movement, this paper believes that the environmental power will be increasingly able to play their political influence with the growing openness of political opportunity structure; and the extensive links between the inner and outer green powers would gradually promote the environmental politics into globalizing levels; since the network has brought the social context from real into virtual, digital environmentalism and online environmental movement are gradually rising; lastly, the objective of Taiwan's environmental movement has gradually expanded from the purely environmental protection in early times into a new economic development model, which would "sustainability" maintain the balance among the economic, environmental and social dimensions.