ABSTRACT
ONE IMPORT ANT lesson we can learn from the "third wave" democratization is that democracy can be achieved via different paths and constructed into different forms. What have largely accounted for the variations in the regime transition trajectories were the preconditions of political change and the initial responses of the non-democratic incumbents to challenges of democratization as well as their strengths relative to the oppositions throughout the transition process. While democratic changes in most Third World authoritarian regimes were the case of military withdrawal from politics under the condition of economic adversity, Taiwan (like Mexico) had an entrenched party regime under the ruling Kuomintang or KMT (literally the Nationalist Party) and was enjoying economic prosperity on the eve of democratization. The fact that the KMT chose not intransigently to resist the trend of democratization and has been dexterous in utilizing its organizational advantage to outscore oppositions in elections thus far, has made Taiwan's path to democracy a regime-led peaceful transition, one that is full of transactions, not ruptures, and one that has allowed the incumbent KMT the opportunity to continually control the pace and sequence of political reform and shape the design of political institutions in such a way as to maximize its chance of regime survival.
