What Has Changed? Taiwan Before and After the Change in Ruling Parties

by Dafydd Fell (Editor), Mikael Mattlin (Contributor), Gaia Puleston (Contributor)

In March 2000, for the first time in its history, Taiwan witnessed a democratic change in ruling parties. Given the contrasting stances on Taiwan's political and cultural belonging held by the defeated party, the KMT, and the new ruling party, the pro-independence DPP, the change wasa historical turning point. Although there has been increasing interest in Taiwan Studies in the last decade, no single volume has yet addressed the complexity and impact of the change in ruling parties in Taiwan. This book aims to fill that gap by comparing the years before and after the DPP's transition to power. Although the analytical starting point is the regime change of 2000, the scope of topics goes beyond party politics. Designed to provide an all-encompassing view, the thirteen chapters examine and evaluate the extent to which the change in Taiwan's ruling party has resulted in a political, social, economic and cultural transformation of the island. They build a complex picture of the differences and the perhaps surprisingly high degree of continuities between the two regimes. The book addresses readers interested in interdisciplinary approaches to Taiwan's recent political, social, and cultural changes.

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 23, 2006

About the author

Dafydd Fell’s interest in Taiwanese politics began after a year as a language student in Taipei in the late 1980s. After graduating from a degree in Chinese Studies he spent most of the 1990s working in Taiwan in the education, broadcasting, tourism, agricultural and sports management sectors. Being an eyewitness to Taiwan’s transition away from authoritarian rule has helped shape his subsequent research at SOAS. He joined the SOAS Politics Department as a PhD student in 1999 and has been teaching here since 2003.

Dafydd’s main research focus has been on Taiwan’s political parties and electoral politics. His first book, Party Politics in Taiwan (Routledge, 2005) examined party change in the first fifteen years of multi-party politics. He frequently visits Taiwan for fieldwork and election observing. He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on Taiwan’s party system, new parties, party switching, candidate selection and how parties learn from electoral setbacks. His second book Government and Politics in Taiwan was published by Routledge in 2011 and a revised and updated second edition was published in 2018. Over the last few years he has been working on a project on the politics of migration and has a co-edited volume titled Migration to and from Taiwan (Routledge, 2014). He also has shifted his attention towards Taiwan’s social movements, publishing an edited book titled Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou in 2017. His current research projects include looking at Taiwan’s Green Party, party switching and candidate selection within parties.

Dafydd has been active in developing the field of Taiwan studies at SOAS and beyond. He helped establish the European Association of Taiwan Studies in 2004 and was the Association’s Secretary General for eight years. At SOAS he has helped develop the world’s most extensive Taiwan Studies teaching and academic events programme.