國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

What has happened to the clientelism closely associated with the authoritarian regime following Taiwan’s democratization? This paper argues that while clientelism in Taiwan will not disappear, it is facing transformative pressures. The clientelism of the authoritarian era focused around factional politics at the county level has gradually evolved into factional politics centered on legislative districts and city or county councilors. While a nationalization of party systems has already emerged, clientelist forms of politics continue to influence Taiwan’s democracy. This paper explains this process of change on two dimensions. First, presidential elections have led to the emergence of a competitive nationalization of party systems centered on two major parties – the Kuomintang (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). However, the paper also points out that aside from presidential elections, the transformation of clientelism in Taiwan is affected by the island’s political cleavages. The national identity cleavage in Taiwan is unlike the left-right ideological cleavages found in both the West and Latin America and cannot be reflected in concrete public policy. Therefore, the winning candidate for the presidency, thinking rationally, will use resource allocation and interest exchange to effectively link up with local political forces and increase his own or his party’s re-election chances. Therefore, clientelism in Taiwan will not disappear. However, it will be more fragmentary and individualized that in the past. A party system centered on policy manifestos has not developed in Taiwan. This paper is based on the cases of Yunlin County, and uses in-depth interviews with local elites to describe, analyze, and demonstrate this process of clientelist transformation.