國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

On  the  issue  of  the  transformation  of  Taiwan  local  factions  in  recent years, the prior research has concentrated on authoritarian regime transition as the major cause of the transformation, and its impacts on internal power structure and coalition strategy of local factions. These explanations neglect the internal structural change of local factions prior to the regime transition. This paper combines two related lines of analyses, one follows the clientelist perspective, but adds state corporatization of societal interest intermediation; the   other   emphasizes   the   autonomy   of   local   factions  relative  to  the party-state,  and  incorporates  the  impacts  of  electoral  competition  on  the internal structure of local factions. The basic argument of this paper can be summarized as follows: The transformation of Taiwan local factions started from the state strategy to corporatize local political elites, which has shaped the basis of their autonomy. This autonomy has accumulated in the electoral process in the past years and led the change of the internal structure of local factions,   while   the   authoritarian   regime   transition   latter   has   further accelerated the ongoing trend of transformation. The transformation of local factions  has  also  transformed  traditional  clientelism  into  semi-clientelism, which  main  feature  is  incorporating  new  clients  into  the  periphery  of traditional   patron-client   network.   The   new   mechanism   of   resources allocation   in   semi-clientelism,   however,   may   threaten   the   democratic consolidation.