A Pioneer Study of the Formation of New Local Political Ecology in Taiwan: Observation of Local Factions in Taichung City and Chiayi County at the County-Level Elections
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Chuang, Cho-Ying
Abstract
Conducting local elections is one of the important factors that form local factions in Taiwan. Traditional factions organize and mobilize themselves, share public office seats, grab resource and interest, and maintain energy to survive by local elections. Moreover, they affect how local politics evolving in our country. Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) with multi-member-district system was used in legislative elections for a long time in Taiwan. Since 2008, in which the 7th legislative elections were held, the electoral system has been changed to Mixed-Member Majoritarian System (MMM). Reduction of legislative seats by half and electoral redistricting accompanied the change. In addition, city-county consolidation and merger of local public office elections was incoming. The shifts of electoral frames to which traditional local factions were accustomed lead to no exerting point. Therefore, formerly faction-guided local political ecology is transforming. This thesis pays attention to political effects on local factions at the county-level elections, concerning electoral system influences by theoretical side, taking regard to derivative consequences of election results by empirical side, and expecting to achieve a conversation between electoral system study and local politics research. The research time period begins in 2008 when legislative electoral system changed, through the local public officers elections in 2014 till now. The observed regions are Taichung City, a typical faction politics area, and Chiayi county, a special case that local faction formed an alliance with political party. This article indicates that local faction politics turns to party politics, mountaintop politics or headman politics gradually. Several new local political features which are different from the past come out, depicting a blueprint of the formation of new local political ecology in Taiwan. Meanwhile, by current local political situations, this thesis surveys the traditional local politics study approaches, that is, patron-client theory and network theory, and it also surveys political cronyism as a new approach. This research discovers that it is difficult to elucidate the whole new local political ecology in Taiwan by patron-client theory and network theory today. Political cronyism completes those defects, and suits to be a new local political analytical framework at present.
Subjects
Local Faction
Electoral System
Local Political Ecology
Political Cronyism
Patron-Client Theory
Mixed-Member Majoritarian System
Headman Politics
Type
thesis
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