國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

This paper tries to analyze the party-government relationship in Taiwan duringthe Chen Shui-bian presidency. The relationship between the ruling party, that is theDemocratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chen Shui-bian’s government should beconsidered under the structure of president-dominant semi-presidentialism and“divided-minority” government. Furthermore, with respect to the presidentdominantsemi-presidentialism, the core dimension of party-governmentrelationship is concerned with how the President deals with the relationship betweenhimself and his party. The author first discusses the experiences of other democraticcountries than have adopted a semi-presidential system. Subsequently he movesonto discuss the Taiwan experience of semi-presidentialism. The overall conclusionis that regardless of whether the President is also the chairman of the DPP or not, heis still both the real leader of the party and the final decision maker of thegovernment. Even so, the patterns and mechanisms of the party-governmentrelationship were fluid during and alternating the different periods of the Chenpresidency. However, under the structure of president-dominant semipresidentialism,there is the tendency that the president will be also the chairman ofhis party so as to control the ruling party and government more effectively. Finally,the phenomenon of “presidentialized parties” is an important issue which needs tobe tested further.