ABSTRACT
Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy began as a dissertation comparing the performance of non-KMT candidates in local elections in 1985 and 1989. When comparisons of structural variables (level of economic development, etc.) proved unavailing, the author turned to Fenno-style ‘soaking and poking’ (Fenno 1978), using a mix of interviews, newspaper reading and participant observation to understand grassroots electoral practices in Taiwan. Revising the dissertation into a book required broadening its appeal by dropping some of the ethnographic detail and adding an argument from the democratisation literature. Politics in Taiwan uses an insight from Bolivar Lamounier’s (1989) study of Brazilian democratisation to show how elections helped to drive the democratisation process in Taiwan. Instead of treating elections as the dependent variable – the indicator of successful democratisation – the book shows that elections can be an independent variable, helping to explain when and how democracy appears and deepens.
