New Tide Faction and Taiwan Democratization in 1980s
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Liao, Chuan-Hsiu
Abstract
This thesis focuses on the New Tide Faction (NTF) and its strategy to promote the Taiwanese transition to democracy in the 1980s. The NTF, composed of intellectuals of the postwar generation, participated in diverse protests against different topics where its self-reflection empowered people and extended its influence to the society. This thesis aims to elaborate its ideas and represent its active networking. To understand how its strategies of protests inspired the society in the 1980s, I analyze them from the perspective of the policy-making process to understand what was taken into account by the NTF when proposing a new strategy at that time. The structure and function of the NTF is introduced in the second chapter. The NTF highly valued ideas and disciplines of its members, which were the key to overcome the obstacle of being repressed. The emphasis on the accumulation of ideas was stressed further than the accumulated interests after the failure of the Kaohsiung Incident, which stimulated a passion of fighting for democracy after depressions. With the emphasis on ideas and disciplines, the NTF transformed from an informal group to a formal organization during the interaction with other activists, even possessing features of a ""Leninist party."" In the third chapter, I focus on the debates of protesters from the Tang-wai (黨外) Period to the DPP (民進黨) Period. The NTF was strengthened by their strategic planning and thinking. The main difference between the NTF and other activists was the interpretation of ideas and situation management. The NTF shaped and helped the growth of democracy, as they not only required ""internal democracy"" on the organizational level but also broadened the concept of ""political democracy."" The former succeeded from the idea of ""against the public in command (反對公職掛帥)"" of the Tang-wai Period. The ""political democracy,"" on the other hand, was achieved as the NTF emphasized Taiwan Independence (台獨) as the implementation of ""national sovereignty,"" which was the goal of democratic movements. In the fourth chapter, I take labor movements as a case analysis instance to illustrate the strategy of NTF in social movements. The NTF provided a ""Mass Route (群眾路線)"" as an overall strategy because they regarded the current situation as ""against foreign party state (外來黨國體制)."" Thus they emphasized local grassroots on the one hand, while they tried to integrate the political and social movements on the other hand. In other words, the NTF considered it necessary to continue the development of parliamentary politics and to respond to the demands of workers, farmers and other oppressed social minorities. With this strategy, the NTF tried to establish a ""united front"" – when social movements improved their own interests, they challenged the party state at the same time. From the perspective of strategic planning to understand the NTF in the 1980s, it is evident that the discrepancies of the interpretation of ideas and situations caused activists to form different strategies. Under strategic cope, we can understand those debates of protesters. The NTF initiated these debates and made progress in the respects of organizational, political, and social democracy in Taiwan. Moreover, we may examine the complex interaction of ideas, interests, and motivations by analyzing the strategies of the NTF and the decision-making process in a historical context. In this way, we can see not only the interaction of ideas, interests and emotions of every activist but also the historical meaning of putting forward and adjusting such strategies.
Subjects
New Tide Faction
Democratization
strategy
SDGs
Type
thesis
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