Nationalism and democracy : Taiwanese nationalism and Taiwan's democratization

Type of content
Theses / Dissertations
Publisher's DOI/URI
Thesis discipline
Political Science
Degree name
Master of Arts
Publisher
University of Canterbury
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
English
Date
1999
Authors
Day, Yi-chueh
Abstract

It is interesting that nationalism and democracy can be closely related and can reinforce each other in some countries. Most social scientists, however, concentrates their research either on nationalism or democracy.

This thesis explores the correlation between nationalism and democracy. Based on Huntington and other scholars' theories on democratization, I will argue that four possible factors (structural changes, the political elite's patronage, external influences and legitimacy crises) may contribute to the development of both nationalism and democracy although they were originally only used to explain how and why democratization happened in some countries but not others.

There are two main findings in this thesis. First, although Taiwanese nationalism was also a product of decades of colonial rule, it did not demand nation-building as much as its counterparts in countries such as Indonesia. Furthermore, Taiwanese most significant nationalist movement, the 228 Incident, aimed at the new coming rulers, the Chinese, instead of their previous colonizers, the Japanese. The incident also seemed to illustrate that shared history and common suffering is more meaningful in forming the sense of an imagined community, a nation, than common myth of descent.

Second, structural changes, the political elite's patronage, external influences and legitimacy crises may have inspired Taiwan's democratization as well as Taiwanese nationalism in the 1970s-90s. Furthe1more, although less apparent, to some extent these factors also appeared during Japanese colonial rule.

Description
Citation
Keywords
Nationalism--Taiwan, Democracy--Taiwan, Taiwan--Politics and government, Taiwan--Politics and government
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
Rights
All Rights Reserved