國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

The Taichung City Council and Taichung County Council were governed by two contrasting political entities before the merger of the two administrative regions in 2010. Caucus is in effect in the former, while the latter was predominantly run by sub-groups consisting of the red and black factions. However, a watershed moment had been reached as the two regions merged to become a special municipality in 2010. Yet, due to the change in political ambiance, what followed was a series of skirmishes. The pan-blue camp at the end formed the sub-group parallel to the caucus. The most important aim of local factions is always to win public sector positions, extract resources which will then be converted to the resources of their factions, and finally strengthen factions’ power. Maximizing the interests of the faction, after all, is the guiding principle.. Therefore, in this study, how the factions from Taichung County maximize their interests through council sub-groups is explored. Furthermore, this paper studies how factions maximize their interests from three aspects: “the formation of sub-groups,” “the interaction between sub- groups and Kuomintang,” and “the effect of sub-groups’ operation”. In addition, eventhough “red-and-black co-governance” remains to be apparent in the Taichung City Council after the merge, how factions decide to allocate resources has changed. In the future, resource allocation will be done so to pursue regional balance between the old Taichung City and Taichung County, instead of pursuing a balance between the red and black factions.