Competition over Party Chairmanship and the Types of Party Organization: A Case Study of the Democratic Progressive Party
Author: Hongming Chen
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
It is impossible to have a modern democracy without political parties. Leaders of political parties therefore play a vital role in the operation of a political system. The l competition over party chairmanship, in addition to the struggle for a leadership role within that political party, is sometimes also related to the competition over the leadership in ruling the government. This paper aims to explore the role of DPP’s chairman and the patterns of the competition over the party’s chairmanship from 1986 to 2015 by studying from two analytical dimensions on party organizations: the degree of being a presidentialized party and that of being an election-machine. The results have shown that from the founding date until now, the DPP’s original characteristic as a missionary party has gradually reduced, and the main direction of party development is shifting towards the end of being an election-machine. However, in the long run, the DPP is a mixture of both missionary intent and an election-machine. Furthermore, under Taiwan’s semi-presidentialism structure, the DPP is more like a presidentialized party. Consequently, the president of the country tends to serve as the chairman of the ruling party as well and the competition for the party chairmanship among the party elites also tends to resemble the competition for the presidency of the country.