A Study of Political Control over the Taiwan National Governing Bodies of Sport

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify political affiliation and political reconstruction both in the ruling of the Kuomintang (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs) in Taiwan. Document analysis and interviews were two of the methods adopted in this study. Each explanation sought to identify both the structural context of policy development and the explanation provided by individual policy actor. The empirical analysis of policies drew on the evidence provided by both the key actors in the state who have played a significant role in enabling sports policy output and also official reports of the Legislative Yuan. Qualitative data analysis software (QSR) was used to manage and organize the data in an inductive and deductive thematic analysis. The KMT government dominated at the central government level for half a century. Specific relationships between the central government and the Republic of China Sports Federation (ROCSF) had been established. The political system in the ROC/Taiwan has been reformed from an authoritarian system to a liberal pluralist state. This has significantly influenced the structure of sports at the central government level. In coming to power in 2000, the DPP has initiated a situation of political affiliation in sport through which it has partly sought to ‘modernise’ by the development of rational criteria for grant aid, and by diminishing the influence of the ROCSF, which had been a bastion of KMT influence. The KMT government over its 51 years of rule in Taiwan accumulated some specific state strategies and established selectivity in its own state forms (eg. the ROCSF). The DPP government took power in the central government after struggling for 14 years (1986-2000) in the political system. The current strategic selectivity of the state is in part for its transformation. The way, in terms of the sports system, the DPP seeks to regulate its relationships with the NGBs can be seen as an emergent effect of the political transformation, from one party control to a modern (rational) liberal democracy, at one level, and at another by the replacement of one party hegemony by another.