Japanese Journal of Political Science 17 (1), 63–83 © Cambridge University Press 2016 doi:10.1017/S1468109915000390 . The Electoral Fortunes of Taiwan’s Green Party: 1996–2012 DAFYDD FELL School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London [email protected] YEN-WEN PENG https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms Institute of Public Affairs Management, National Sun Yat Sen University, Taiwan [email protected] Abstract The Green Party Taiwan (GPT) represents an important case both for scholars of environmental politics but also Taiwanese politics. Established in 1996, it is the oldest Asian green party and is one of the most active parties in the Asia-Pacific Greens network. The party has enjoyed mixed electoral fortunes. After promising early election results, the GPT virtually ceased contesting elections between 2000 and 2005. However, from 2006 the party began a gradual revival in its vote shares. This process , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at culminated in the January 2012 Legislative Yuan election when the GPT surprised many observers by coming fifth in the proportional party vote. Considering the limited resources at the party’s disposal this was quite an achievement. In this study, we examine and explain the changing electoral fortunes of the GPT since its establishment in 1996. We are interested to see whether standard theories for explaining small or 18 Jan 2020 at 01:12:25 ecological party success, that have been developed in western Europe, work well in the , on Taiwan context. Our research is based on a range of new fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2014. These include in-depth interviews with campaigners and party leaders, focus group sessions with party leaders and candidates, and interviews with party supporters. Open University Library . In January 1996, Taiwan’s Green Party (GPT) was established and three months later contested its first national election.1 In that election, the party won over 1% of the 1 From the start, the party used Green Party Taiwan as its English name, however for its first two elections its Chinese name was , literally the Green Localized Fresh Party. 63 https://www.cambridge.org/core https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109915000390 Downloaded from 64 dafydd fell and yen-wen peng national vote and a National Assembly seat.2 Many of the other small parties created after Taiwan’s democratization have been taken over by the mainstream parties or ceased contesting elections. In contrast, the GPT has continued to nominate candidates and played an important role in the country’s environmental movement. A major . achievement for the party came in the 2012 Legislative election when it won 1.7%of the party list vote, making it the fifth largest party. The GPT is arguably Taiwan’s most international political party.3 A major component of the party’s appeal is that it is part of the international green party movement and after the Australian, and New Zealand GPs, it is the most active of the Asia Pacific Greens parties network.4 Although the GPT currently does not yet hold any national seats, the last national elections showed it has the potential to gain national representation and to become a relevant political party. Despite being the oldest green party in Asia, it has received very https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms little academic interest, as the bulk of research on Taiwanese party politics has focused on its main parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (Fell, 2005a;Fell,2005b;Ho,2005, 2006;Rigger,2001). If we think comparatively, the GPT has performed quite well electorally in terms of seats and votes. The Green Party of England and Wales took over two decades to win its first national seat in parliament and gained under 1% of the vote in the 2010 parliamentary elections. Despite having similar national level electoral records, the Green Party of England and Wales has received extensive academic attention (Meguid, 2008;Spoon,2011). The East Asian democracies most often compared with Taiwan politically are Japan and South Korea. Although Japan and South Korea have longer democratic histories, have larger and wealthier populations and economies, their green parties have lagged behind Taiwan’s. For example, Greens Japan was not officially established as a political party until 2012. The Korean Green Party was only formed in March 2012, lost its party status after poor , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at electoral performance in April, and was re-established as Green Party Plus in October of the same year. A sign of the GPT’s status within the Asia Pacific Greens network is that it sent representatives to events surrounding the inauguration of these sister parties. The GPT represents a unique case in Taiwan’s party politics. The majority 18 Jan 2020 at 01:12:25 of electorally significant smaller parties in Taiwan have been offshoots of the two , on mainstream parties, the KMT and DPP. Parties such as the New Party (NP) or Taiwan Independence Party (TIP) are what Paul Lucardie (2000)termspurifierparties,in that they base their appeals on core values of the mainstream parties. These can be 2 Until 2005, Taiwan held two types of parliamentary elections. They were for the National Assembly and Open University Library the Legislative Yuan. The National Assembly originally elected the president and revised the constitution, . while the Legislative Yuan is the law-making body. The final National Assembly election was held in 2005. 3 The Democratic Progressive Party is a member of Liberal International, while the Kuomintang is part of the International Democrat Union. However, neither has made this part of its core electoral appeal. 4 The current Convenor of the Asia-Pacific Greens Federation, Keli Yen, is from the GPT. She is also one of the three Asia-Pacific delegates to the Global Greens Coordination, which is composed of 12 delegates from the four continental Federations. Asia Pacific Greens homepage: http://www.asiapacificgreens.org/. https://www.cambridge.org/core https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109915000390 Downloaded from the electoral fortunes of taiwan’s green party 65 contrasted with prophetic parties, which concentrate on new issue appeals that have never been given much attention by the political establishment. In Taiwan, the purifier parties have been far more successful electorally than the prophetic challenger parties in terms of winning seats (Fell, 2005b). The GPT ranks as the most significant prophetic . party; while other parties in this category tended to only join one or two elections and then disappear, it has continued nominating candidates since 1996. Its potential was revealed by the 2012 national elections in which though the NP had far greater financial and human resources, the GPT gained a larger vote share. In this paper, we examine how to best explain the changing electoral fortunes of the GPT since 1996. After the introduction, we first review the main theoretical approaches that western political scientists have adopted to explain the success of green parties in Europe. Then after briefly describing the context surrounding the establishment of the https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms GPT, we have a section outlining the impact of the GPT in both local and national level elections. We then make use of our original interview and focus group data collected between 2012 and 2014 with party leaders, candidates, members, and supporters to analyse how we can best explain the GPT’s electoral performance since its formation. We are interested to see whether the existing theoretical approaches for explaining green party success work well in a non-European political environment. Explaining green party electoral fortunes The study of green parties has tended to be located within the field of small or niche parties in comparative politics. Within this field, a number of perspectives on how to best explain the impact of smaller parties have been proposed. However, these have almost exclusively been based on cases in Western Europe. One popular approach is to examine the role of sociological variables in explaining , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at the impact of smaller parties. Here the link is made between the salience of challenger parties’ favoured issues and their electoral impact. For instance, Robert Inglehart (1997) and Ferdinand Muller-Rommel¨ (1998) have argued there is a relationship between higher levels of post-materialism in society and green party success. In Taiwan, the dominant political cleavage since democratization has been national identity and 18 Jan 2020 at 01:12:25 relations with China (Hsieh, 2002). Other issues have been important periodically, but , on are generally regarded as secondary issues by Taiwanese studies of voting behaviour. However, the salience of environmental issues and rising environmental consciousness should offer greater space for pro-environmental political parties. Nevertheless, the rise in environmental awareness cannot fully explain the impact of the GPT as the party suffered a serious decline after 1998, despite rising environmental salience and Open University Library . consciousness. A number of studies have suggested a relationship between certain sociological variables and green party support. For instance, younger voters, female voters, those with higher education, socio-cultural professionals, and those in the public sector are viewed as more supportive of green parties in Europe (Rudig,¨ 2012). The relatively high education levels of the Taiwanese electorate, large public sector, and socio-cultural sectors should provide space for the GPT. However, a challenge in testing https://www.cambridge.org/core https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109915000390 Downloaded from 66 dafydd fell and yen-wen peng these variables is the lack of survey data regarding support for smaller parties such as the GPT.5 Another explanation that has been applied to analyse small party fortunes is to focus on institutions, particularly the electoral system.