Political Support and Democratic Consolidation
Author: Tsong-Jyi Lin
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
This study attempts to explore Taiwan’s democratization by examining publicsupport at three levels: political community, regime, and authority. There areseveral findings. First, democracy did not emerge on the island until the identitycontroversy of the political community was solved both at the elite and mass levels.Taiwanese have high consensus on the boundary and membership of politicalcommunity over the past decade. Although the DPP government has continuouslyraised the independence issues since 2000, over 85% of Taiwanese people favor defacto independence, over de jure independence. Secondly, Taiwanese support fordemocracy was unstable during the period 1998-2004. Compared to other cases, thepercentage of Taiwanese support for democracy is relatively low, standing atbetween 43% and 55%. Thirdly, most Taiwanese are unsatisfied with theperformance of political authority. The outputs of executive and legislativebranches in particular exert significant influence on public support for democracy.Apparently, the quality of democratic governance is highly related to theconsolidation of Taiwanese democracy. In conclusion, this study suggests that thepolitical elite should pay more attention to institutional performance, instead of theindependence issues.