Taiwan's Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan by Dafydd Fell will be published on 16 March 2021.
Book Description
Examining the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) since its establishment through the aftermath of the most recent national elections in January 2020, this book focuses on Taiwan’s most important movement party over the last two and a half decades. Despite its limited electoral impact, its leaders have played a critical role in a range of social movements, including anti-nuclear and LGBT rights campaigns.
Plotting the party’s evolution in electoral politics as well as its engagement with the global green movement, this volume analyses key patterns of party change in electoral campaign appeals, organisation and its human face. The second half of the volume concentrates on explaining both the party’s electoral impact and why the party has adjusted ideologically and organisationally over time. Based on a wide range of material collected, including focus groups, interviews and political communication data, the research relies heavily on analysis of campaign material and the voices of party activists and also considers other Green Parties, such as the splinter Trees Party and GPT-Social Democratic Alliance.
Applying a wide range of theoretical frameworks to plot and explain small party development, this book will appeal both to students and scholars of Taiwan’s politics and civil society but also to readers with an interest in small parties and particularly environmental parties and movements.
Table of Contents
Part I. Introduction, Research Questions and Formation
1. Taiwan’s Green Parties: Alternative politics in Taiwan
2. Frameworks and Data for Analysing Taiwan’s Green Parties
3. Beautiful accidents: The formation of Taiwan’s Green Parties
Part II. The Changing Impact and Human Face of the Green Parties
4. The Impact of the Green Parties in Taiwan: Elections, Media and the International
5. Who are the Green Parties? Leaders, Candidates and Supporters
Part III. The First Decade: 1996-2005
6. The GPT’s First Election in 1996: Professor Kao Catching Missiles
7. Almost breaking through in 1998: Is it OK to frequent sexual nightclubs?
8. Understanding the GPT’s quiet period: 1999-2005
Part IV. The Pan Han-sheng era: 2006-2012
9. Returning to elections between 2006 and 2009: The Wish of the Ladybird, Red-Green Alliance and Treetop Protest
10. The Struggle to become a Relevant Party: The 2010 and 2012 campaigns
Part V. The Lee Ken-cheng era 2013-2016
11. Reforms and the Local Breakthroughs and Setbacks of 2014: Unfinished Progress
12. The 2016 GPT SDP Alliance’s failed national breakthrough: The Lunchboxes and Teenage Idol election
Part VI. The Wang Hau-yu era: 2016-2020
13. A new model of local election campaigning in 2018: Winning or Selling its Soul?
14. The Teng Hui-wen or Wang Hau-yu GPT campaigns in 2020
Part VII. Conclusion
15. Conclusion: The aftermath, rebranding, returning to research questions and practical lessons.