ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the most important factor in the shift of the balance of power between the state and society—democratic transition. It analyses two theories of democratization—the structural and the process approaches to democratic transition. The chapter also focuses on the early stage of top-down liberalization in Taiwan, the division within the state and society, the emergence of a state-society alliance, and the consolidation of the reformers in Taiwan. Economic development and the development of a market economy create civil society. Civil society conceived as an aggregate of institutions whose members are engaged primarily in a complex of non-state activities, exercises all sorts of pressures or controls on state institutions. The forces of political opposition within civil society play the role of forcing the state to reform. The Democratic Progressive Party has acted as a competing force with the Kuomintang, voicing dissident opinions in society.
