Party Platform Change in Taiwan's 1990s Elections

Issues and Studies

Volumn 38, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 31-60

  Fell, Dafydd ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Elections; Issue saliency; Party platform change; Taiwan

Indexed keywords

EID: 0348237069     PISSN: 10132511     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, "Continuity and Change in Taiwan's Party Politics" (Paper presented at the Conference on Local Self-Government in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, May 1997).
2. For analysis of the malleability of South Korean political parties, see Ahn Chung-si and Jaung Hoon in Ian Marsh, Jean Blondel, and Takashi Inoguchi, eds., Democracy Governance, and Economic Performance: East and South East Asia (New York: United Nations University, 1999), 142-51.
3. Ibid., 337-39.
4. The PFP's performance in the December 2001 elections contradicts this pattern The PFP gained forty-six seats in the Legislative Yuan, which is over double the highest the number of seats the NP held at its peak in1995-98.
5. For examples of the shifts in the party image of the DPP, see Chen Ming-tong "The DPP's Party Image" (Paper presented at the 1998 Taiwanese Political Science Association Conference, Taipei, December 1998) or You Ying-long Minyi yu Taiwan zhengzhi bianqian (Public opinion and Taiwan's political change) (Taipei: Yuedan, 1996), 65-105.
6. For examples of the shifts in the party image of the DPP, see Chen Ming-tong "The DPP's Party Image" (Paper presented at the 1998 Taiwanese Political Science Association Conference, Taipei, December 1998) or You Ying-long Minyi yu Taiwan zhengzhi bianqian (Public opinion and Taiwan's political change) (Taipei: Yuedan, 1996), 65-105.
7. For the Japanese case, see Hideo Otake, ed., How Japanese Electoral Reform Boomeranged: Continuity in Japanese Campaigning Style (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 1999).
8. Dafydd Fell, "The Evolution and Role of Campaign Issues in Taiwan's 1990s Elections," Asian Journal of Political Science (Singapore) 9, no. 1 (June 2001): 81-94.
9. A party "owns" an issue when it dominates the emphasis of the issue during the campaign.
10. Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper, 1957), 117-18.
11. Ian Budge, "Parties, Programs, and Policies: A Comparative and Theoretical Perspective," The American Review of Politics 14 (Winter 1993): 695-716.
12. For analysis of the demise of the JSP, see Shinkawa Toshimitsu, "Where Have the Socialists Gone? The Trajectory and Tragedy of the Japanese Socialist Party" (Paper presented at the American Political Science Association Conference, Boston, August 2000).
13. This is revealed by survey research, which shows that respondents view the KMT as having played a greater role in promoting democracy than the DPP. See You, Minyi yu Taiwan zhengzhi bianqian, 89.
14. See Taipei Times, January 5, 2001, 1.
15. Liu Tsung-wei, "Ideology, Strategy, and Party Change in Taiwan from 1989 to 1998" (Paper presented at the 7th Taiwanese Political Science Association Conference, Kaohsiung, December 2000), 4.
16. The MRG coding scheme was developed by a research group of the European Consortium for Political Research in 1979. This system for content analysis of election manifestos includes fifty-seven basic policy issues. This scheme has been applied to analyze national election manifestos in twenty-five democracies over the 1945-98 period. For details see Ian Budge, Hans Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara, and Eric Tanenbaum, Mapping Policy Preferences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 219-28.
17. Liu, "Ideology, Strategy, and Party Change," 3-4.
18. An example of this was the wide media coverage of Chen Shui-bian's advertisement showing a picture of his son in army uniform, saying, "Next year he will do military service, his father is Chen Shui-bian." See Lianhe bao (United Daily News), March 6, 2000, 7.
19. These three papers also reflect the main political currents, with Zhongguo shibao closer to the mainstream KMT, Lianhe bao sympathetic with the non-mainstream KMT and the NP, and Ziyou shibao closer to the DPP. This is apparent by the fact that throughout the 1990s the NP and James Soong in 2000 did not have a single advertisement in Ziyou shibao, and in the 1991 and 1992 elections Lianhe bao was free of DPP advertisements.
20. A "quasi sentence" is the verbal expression of one political idea or issue. Since one sentence may include a number of arguments, sentences may be divided into quasi sentences that are divided by commas, semicolons, or colons. For details see Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences, 96-103.
21. Although these advertisements are anonymous or taken out in the name of obscure groups, in 95 percent of the cases the political inclination of the advertisement is obvious. Of course, determining whether the party center funded the advertisements is more difficult.
22. See Liu, "Ideology, Strategy, and Party Change," table 2.
23. "111A" refers to calls for a new constitution for the "Republic of Taiwan"; "111B" refers to mentions of opposing unification or repackaged Taiwan independence calls such as "one Taiwan, one China" or joining the United Nations; "112A" refers to calls to preserve the Republic of China and oppose Taiwan independence.
24. For an example of a single campaign project see Cheng Tzu-long "An Analysis of Party Newspaper Advertisements and Media Policy During the 1995 Legislative Yuan Election," Xuanju yanjiu (Journal of Electoral Studies) (Taipei) 3, no. 2 (November 1996): 1-32.
25. For example, Chen Yiyan and Chen Shimin Content Analysis of Newspaper Reports and Advertisements during the 1989 Elections (Taipei: Chang Yung-Fa Foundation/Institute for National Policy Research, 1990).
26. Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences, 22.
27. See KMT advertisement in Lianhe bao, November 21, 1994, 25. This advertisement attacks the DPP for its record of inciting violence and drug dealing and shows a picture of a DPP campaign truck in a riot.
28. "The 11th National Public Opinion Survey: Party Image" (Unpublished paper by the DPP Survey Research Department, 1999), 5.
29. See KMT advertisement in Lianhe bao, November 24, 1998, 1.
30. See KMT legislator Wang Jin-pyng's advertisement in Zhongguo shibao (China Times), November 2, 1995, 47.
31. One example is the KMT's attack on James Soong's role in the Xingpiao scandal See Ziyou shibao, February 17, 2000, 5.
32. John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, "The SNTV System and Its Political Implications," in Taiwan's Electoral Politics and Democratic Transition, ed. Hung-mao Tien (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 193-212.
33. John Hsieh and Emerson Niou, "Salient Issues in Taiwan's Electoral Politics," Electoral Studies 15 (1996): 219-35.
34. See Ziyou shibao, November 18, 1992, 1.
35. See note 13 above.
36. Personal interview, April 12, 2000.
37. For Wang Chien-hsuan's version, see the NP advertisement in Lianhe bao, November 16, 1994, 4.
38. See Zhongguo shibao, March 21, 2000, 33.
39. "The 11th National Public Opinion Survey: Party Image," 3.
40. See Liu, "Ideology, Strategy, and Party Change," 7.
41. See Zhongguo shibao, March 4, 2000, 10.
42. Ibid., March 2, 2000, 16.
43. The 1999 DPP party image survey (cited in note 29 above) found that 32.9 percent felt the DPP better able to handle the social welfare issue, compared to 20.7 percent for the KMT.
44. Ian Budge, David Robertson, and D.J. Hearl, eds., Ideology Strategy and Party Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 392-99.
45. Editorial, Taipei Times, April 17, 2002, available at 〈www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/04/ 17/0000132193〉.