The Great Transition

Abstract

I n the 1980s, political change reverberated across the Pacific Basin: In early 1986, a revolution in the Philippines revived democracy and replaced an autocrat who had ruled for nearly fifteen years; in late 1987, the ruling party in the Republic of Korea allowed direct popular elections for the presidency to be held for the first time in more than a decade. In late 1986, the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT)-which had ruled the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan without significant opposition for some forty years-lifted martial law, allowing new political parties to form and compete with the KMT, and launched other reforms. These countries have cultures and institutions very different from those in the West. Can these Asian-Pacific societies still develop a democratic political system like the West's, yet remain compatible with their cultures and institutions? If so, what kind of democratic polity might be expected to emerge? To answer these questions, we examine the ROC, because of all three countries mentioned above, its transition from a powerful ruling party to a polity of new political opposition seems to have been the most successful.