The State-Society Interaction in the Process of Taiwan’s Democratization from 1990 to 1992

摘要

This paper examining the process of Taiwan’s democratization introduces a special mode of democratization which involves cooperative interactions between reformists in the state and oppositionists in society. Focusing on the years 1990 to 1992, a key period of Taiwan’s democratization during which key authoritarianism-supporting institutions were destroyed, the paper demonstrates that a tacit coalition of the reformists in the state and the oppositionists in society began to loom in Taiwan in July 1988 and was solidified in June 1990, and, from June 1990 to December 1992, this coalition successfully forced the conservatives in the state to accept its demand that key authoritarianism-supporting institutions had to be destroyed.