The new executives who take office today lack many resources usually available to governors of nations. The DDP, which nominated Chen Shui-bian (
The DPP, however, does own one enviable resource: a worthy biography of its origins and development by an eminently objective if sympathetic chronicler. Dr Shelley Rigger finished writing DPP 2000 in time to post it on a special website a few weeks before the election. The text will be brought up-to-date and appear in book form later this year or early next. Until Caves and Eslite have hard copies on the shelves, readers may continue to rely on [www.dpp2000.com] for this useful and timely guidebook. Political discourse on both sides of the Taiwan Strait would be enlightened if the author and publisher would arrange for the early publication of a Chinese translation.
Rigger brings several qualifications to summarizing the party's evolution and projecting its contributions to Taiwan politics. She has studied politics in Taiwan for more than a decade since beginning field research in the murky terrain of KMT factions at local levels. Fluent in both Mandarin and Hokkien, she has been able to interview more extensively than many other foreign scholars. That she is ineligible to vote in Taiwan elections is to the reader's advantage; she exercises her critical skills as well as showing her genuine admiration for the goals of the DPP. Her basic standpoint, however, resides in a commitment to democracy rather than to any particular party, as she made clear in her first book, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy, published in l999.
The party whose fortunes Rigger appraises has been, for most of the democratization period, a key element in Taiwan's one-and-one-half party system. The half party, to Rigger's surprise and that of many others, is now the ruling party, of sorts, holding the presidency and selecting the ministers and council chairs in the Executive Yuan. The KMT meanwhile controls the organization of the Legislative Yuan and populates other yuans, Examination as well as Executive, Judicial and Control, with many professional bureaucrats and highly political appointed officials.
Nevertheless, the KMT suffers post election low morale and is less of a party than before. The People First Party enters stage right. Depending on its success or failure, Taiwan may witness the conversion of a one-and-one-half party arrangement to a three halves system.
In claiming the presidency and much of the rest of the executive, the DPP's strategists confirmed their theory that it would be easier to win a one-on-one contest than to win a plurality of multi-member district seats in the Legislative Yuan. Taiwan's anomalous electoral method, the single nontransferable vote, systematically favors the larger, better organized, wealthier party. Hence, the KMT seems likely to continue formidably in races for this branch in late 200l, despite its poor showing in the presidential vote.
This DPP strategy and others for using hard to come by resources are among the hot topics in Rigger's book. Rigger, who teaches at Davidson College, probably knows more about the DPP than any other person, local or foreign. If anyone disputes this distinction, all will agree she is the world's second leading authority on the subject.
Now is not the time for speculation about the future of online publishing, or "posting," but if not for this medium, Rigger's analysis would not have been available before the election and during the inauguration period. For weeks it has been the handbook for commentaries on the emergence of the new governing party.
It is a goldmine of information and research to help reconsider trends in the DPP, underlying conditions that have produced the party as it now is, and projections of its likely prospects as Asia's newest major party.
Any reader who believes political parties still matter, even in a period of post modernism, will find support in DPP 2000. Any who don't believe parties have any continuing significance, need to read this book.
Rigger projects that a Chen government will not change fundamental policies of the ROC on Taiwan. Her explanations for this expectation are familiar, but gathered together persuasively. In addition to the KMT's continuing dominance in the legislature, already noted, Rigger identifies personnel in the central government as a source of resistance to change. Not all bureaucrats, to be sure, are members of the KMT, but the strength of that party has not been dependent on its membership, or even its cadres. Some of its influence has derived from its pervasiveness, or invasiveness, in many aspects of life among the people of Taiwan. The interchangeability of party perspectives and government perspectives, long in the making and execution, will be hard to dismantle.
A prima facie case for immobility can be made, and Rigger makes it. But is it rebuttable? Already signs of change appear in perspectives to be followed by some shifts in policies: ministries or more precisely some of the people in them are showing they have multiple loyalties, including to the principle of political party turnover and to the policies of new bosses. The overnight transformation of the Government Information Office, well-staffed with specialists in propaganda, is a case in point. To follow its online services, publications, and other expressions would make one think Chen had succeeded Sun Yat-sen
Not only are government agencies changing and likely to change, but the parties themselves have been in the process of alteration since well before the election. Indeed, the election promoted reorientation of party positions. Who thinks the DPP leadership would have remade its cross-strait policies but for the greater probability of electing Chen? Who believes that the KMT would consider seriously reorganizing the management of its immense fortune if Lien Chan
Chen's post-campaign priorities evidenced the continuity of China's penetration of Taiwan affairs. A DPP-led government no more likely will resolve differences with the PRC than the previous administration, but within days of the election, Chen had reaped the benefits of his pre-election ministrations to people in Washington. He and his associates seemed to be bringing out the democratic natures of US politicians and diplomats at the expense of the cranky sentiments among those who regard Taiwan as a nuisance inhibiting relations with the PRC.
Taiwan is securing its reputation for being on the democratic side of history, to borrow a metaphor from one US politician, and the election and post-election periods have made this possible.
Rigger's projections for a Chen government included its difficulty, now confirmed, in staffing political offices with DPP troops. The makeup of the Cabinet reflects the short-handedness in the party that elected the new president. Whether Chen had won 39 percent or 49 percent or 5l percent of the votes, he might have found it worthwhile to reach out to unexpected sources of talent and experience, especially given the stressful times likely to be ahead vis-a-vis the PRC.
It is important to be clear on the strengths and weaknesses of political parties among participants in elections in places such as Taiwan. Parties still count for something -- they nominate candidates, symbolize positions, mobilize voters, or some of them. And whoever wins organizes, more or less, the administration of government.
In the late 20th century, however, and now in the new one, the significance of party declined in many people's lives. This as much as any factor may explain the troubles for the KMT; its former strength as a social movement eventually weakened it as a party. Why look to a political party for advice on family planning, summer excursions, overseas travel, scholarships abroad, military service and financial investment, not to mention reading material from publishing houses and newspapers and entertainment from television producers and movie theatres?
Chen has made, so far at least, a virtue of his necessity by symbolizing a government above party all the while using what few levers the parties may have in governing. He appears to recognize the world wide disdain for parties, indeed for many traditional institutions.
President Lee Teng-hui
This is the requirement for coalition governments, cross-party administrations, mixed political systems and divided polities in various places around the world in the last two or three decades. That these new forms of governing coincide with the age of democracy is not coincidental. They constitute a new kind of check and balance arrangement.
In this new age, Taiwan's leaders often have been foresightful or lucky or both. Chiang Ching-kuo
Ultimately, DPP 2000 and Taiwan 2000 must share their fates with the PRC 2000.
James A. Robinson, a policy scientist, teaches "Democracies" and other courses at the University of West Florida.
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