Introduction

By any criteria, major parties and the party system in newly democratized Taiwan are fairly institutionalized. The two leading parties – the Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) – are enduring, resilient, and well embedded in their support bases. Factions have existed within each party, and factional conflict can be acute, but factionalism has not undermined party coherence or identity. During the extended period of democratic transition, the two leading parties – at times, in accord with their affiliated partners – have competed fiercely but principally at the ballot box rather than in the streets or under the shadow of democracy-inhibiting forces such as the military or insurgents. By and large, the two political camps have accepted electoral competition as the only legitimate avenue to power, the emotional confrontation on the street over the contested result of the presidential election in 2004 being a notable exception. The magnitude of electoral volatility has been small by comparison with other young democracies in the region. Typically, the dominant KMT ebbed and the DPP flowed, both incrementally rather than abruptly. With the deepening of democratization, electoral volatility increased, especially in recent elections, but the spikes were transitional, caused by a major electoral reform that has effectively eliminated all small parties.