ABSTRACT
Environmentalists opposed and stopped the construction of Taiwan's controversial eighth naphtha cracker of Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co, KPT, in central Taiwan between 2008 and 2011. Through documentary analysis and in-depth stakeholders interviews, this chapter analyzes how the different actors involved framed the protest campaign by positing particular attention to the employment of rules-based participatory approaches. Towards the end, the analysis shifts to the issue of "strategic timing" considering that the protest took place in a pre-electoral year, and attempts to gauge to which extent such political and electoral concerns have ultimately influenced the cancelation of the project. In the anti-Kuokuang movement, the involvement of "celebrities" from the artistic and cultural community and their high status in society has no doubt contributed to give a great boost to the anti-petrochemical movement with film directors, teachers and poets joining more traditional stakeholders and symbolizing, one of the most interesting new additions to the environmental governance process of the country.
