Nested Pyramid Structures: Political Parties in Taiwanese Elections

Abstract

The nature of the political party in Taiwan has been insufficiently problematized in recent writings on the island's elections. Based on field research this article argues that the informal structure of political support in Taiwan takes the shape of nested pyramid structures, built of successive dyadic support relations between politician and supporter and two politicians at different hierarchical levels, culminating in a handful of top political leaders. The political party is only the widest kind of support network, and in lower-level elections not the central agent. The dyads in Taiwan politics differ from traditional patron–client relations in being more dynamic, equal and voluntary. This informal political structure coupled with generally weak party loyalty and large benefits of incumbency produces pervasive party instability and subsequent election instability at higher election levels. The number of top political leaders and relations between them are critical in structuring the party scene.

Jejaring Sosial Dalam Pembentukan Tim Sukses Mandiri Di Pemilu DPRD Kabupaten 2019

“…Sebagai contoh dinegaranegara Amerika selatan, diVenezuela (Frey dkk, 2019), Meksiko (Larreguy dkk, 2016), Brazil (Gingerich dan Medina, 2013), Argentina (Zarazaga, 2014),dan Paraguay (Finan dan Schechter, 2012). Di Negara-negara Asia, seperti di Taiwan (Mattlin, 2004;Wu dan Huang, 2004), Thailand (Hellmann, 2014). Bahkan di negaranegara yang dianggap non-demokratis seperti di China (Kennedy, 2010), dan di Mesir era rezim otoriter (Blaydes, 2006).Bahkan pemanfaatan tim pemenangan di luar partai politik juga dilakukan di negara maju, seperti di Rusia (Frey dkk, 2019).…”

Segmenting Taiwanese tourists to China by ethnic identity and generation

“…Given that Taiwan has undergone a political transformation from authoritarianism to democracy since the late 1980s (Jacobs and Liu, 2007), the structure of political ideology in Taiwan has also evolved from the unitary 'China (or Chinese)' to the contrary 'China (or Chinese)' and 'Taiwan (or Taiwanese)' (Mattlin, 2004). This contrary ideology or China-Taiwan complex further originates different mental inclinations toward China or Taiwan (Shyu, 2004).…”

Outsourcing candidate selection

“…When these primaries were finished, the widespread occurrence of vote-buying had made obvious that, although none of the major factions relied on clientelism to mobilize voters in national elections, the party membership was pervaded by so-called 'pocket members' (koudaidangyuan) -members recruited through the provision of particularistic incentives (Fell, 2006: 185). 8 Most likely, pocket members had entered the party through clientelistic networks of local politicians, as clientelism plays an important role in local elections -for all political parties (see Mattlin, 2004).…”