Signs of Change? An Analysis of Taiwan's December 2009 Local Elections
Under special circumstances created by a government decision to partly merge and upgrade six counties and county-level cities to special municipality status, local elections took place on December 5, 2009 in areas covering less than half of Taiwan's population. The results are generally seen as an important, though small, victory for the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) (Guomindang), however, has remained in a stable position, while the DPP still has a long way to go towards a comeback.
Taiwan's 1998 Local Elections: Appraising Steps in Democratization
The lore of Taiwan politics attributes considerable significance to local elections in the gradual democratization of the Republic of China (ROC). Yet, since the major reforms of the late 1980s, relatively little attention has focused on campaigns and voting for county and large city councillors and for small town mayors and village chiefs. To help fill this lacuna, we observed the January 1998 elections for these offices and compared them with those of January 1994. The importance of these positions and their occupants derives both from partisanship and factionalism surrounding the recruitment of candidates and election of officials and from the winners' participation in government. As local legislators and executives, they share responsibilities for policy and administration of 23 counties and cities in Taiwan Province and two sets of county islands in the remnants of Fujian Province, nestled against the continental mass of the People's Republic of China (PRC). These areas, now predominantly in control of the main opposition party, include more than 70% of the population of the ROC, 69% of local financial expenditures, and 83% of governmental revenues. Literally hundreds of local legislators and executives filling these posts participate in shaping and sharing power, wealth, status, and other valued objects among Taiwan's citizenry.
China's Peasants: The Anthropology of a Revolution
List of illustrations List of tables Preface Notes on the text 1. The old feudal order: Zengbu before liberation 2. Establishing the new order 3. The ordeal of collectivization 4. The Cultural Revolution 5. Maoist society: the production team 6. Maoist society: the brigade 7. Maoist society: the commune 8. Decollectivization: transition to the post-Mao period 9. The cultural construction of emotion in rural Chinese social life 10. Marriage, household, and family form 11. Chinese birth planning: a cultural account 12. Lineage and collective: structure and praxis 13. Party organization 14. The party ethic: a devotion born of distress and enthusiasm 15. A caste-like system of social stratification: the position of peasants in modern China's social order 16. The Chinese peasants and the world capitalist system 17. The crystallization of post-Mao society: Zengbu in 1985 References Index.