ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of Taiwan’s disputed 2004 presidential election, it became common to see the slogan ‘Democracy is Dead in Taiwan’ at Pan Blue rallies. Since the KMT’s 2008 return to power, many DPP supporters have in turn complained of a return to authoritarian government practices. Even many outside observers who had been full of praise for Taiwan’s democratization in the 1990s began to question the state of the island’s democracy in the post-2000 period. Taiwan is not alone in this respect. After the optimism of the height of the Third Wave of democratization, there was stagnation in the number of new democratic transitions and concern about democratic reversals. The focus of democracy research became less on how to engineer transition and more towards how and why countries were unable to consolidate their democracies. A common complaint in new democracies is that though they offer reasonably fair and regular elections, they have failed to bring tangible improvement to the everyday lives of citizens. In many newly democratic countries there are signs of nostalgia for authoritarianism among older generations.
