Democratizing Taiwan is a history of what some call the “Taiwan political miracle.” The author begins with the Japanese period and ends in late 2011, just before Taiwan's first combined presidential/vice presidential and legislative election held in January 2012.
The main focus of the book is the presidencies of Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian. The author provides less coverage of the current presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, which is treated in a chapter entitled “The Kuomintang Regains Power.” Jacobs devotes separate chapters to the 1996 election, the latter half of the Lee Teng-hui presidency, and Chen Shui-bian's victory in the 2000 election.
Most of the literature on Taiwan's democratization, and there is a considerable amount, applies one or more of the mainstream theories of democratization, considers the main elements in the process as Taiwan applied them, and focuses on Taiwan's uniqueness in accomplishing what it did. The author instead proceeds from his own constructs.
Jacobs's framework of analysis is this: First he cites other “stable” democracies in Asia (Japan, India, South Korea) to compare and contrast what Taiwan did. Second, he assesses the democratization process in Taiwan at the top. Third, he assesses “liberalization” and “democratization” in Taiwan as being something quite dissimilar.
Some might think that Jacobs's “club of stable Asian democracies” is too exclusive. Jacobs compares Taiwan only to other mass democracies in Asia that have been democratic for some time and have not experienced serious setbacks. Many observers cite several other Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore, as having democratized quite successfully.
Some readers will also find the author's “from the top down” approach to Taiwan's democratization odd since leaders of the opposition Democratic Progress Party, toward which Jacobs obviously tilts, have long contended that Taiwan democratized mainly from the bottom up. They so argue in order to underscore their role in the process since they began in local politics and were late in influencing the democratization process at the national level. But they have a point. In any case, most Western scholars give credence to both arguments.
Finally, liberalization and democratization do not appear to be distinctly separate processes. In the case of Taiwan, the transition from one to the other (if there indeed was one) was not palpable to most people. Certainly January 1988 (when Lee Teng-hui became president) was not a magic moment. This differentiation, however, allows Jacobs to regard what former President Chiang Ching-kuo accomplished as something other than democratization. Jacobs ostensibly did this in order to argue that subsequent presidents deserve the lion's share of the credit for Taiwan becoming a democracy. But this contradicts what people in Taiwan think: According to a fairly recent poll asking which president contributed the most to Taiwan's democratization, Chiang Ching-kuo is ranked first.
Two items that Jacobs might have put under the rubric of liberalization (or at least background), but many writers call the beginning of democratization, are glaringly missing: The first is the United States ensuring Taiwan's security after the onset of the Korean War. Local elections were held forthwith. The second is land reform. What the Nationalist Party and government did (with U.S. help) was historic. As a result, local feudalism was eradicated and the foundation was established for local democracy.
The author writes about Chen Shui-bian's reforms and why there were not more; his answer is the Kuomintang (KMT)-controlled legislature. He describes the latter in quite negative terms even though to many writers it has been the driver of democratization in Taiwan. Finally, it is a matter of record that Chen's panoply of reforms promised when he ran for the presidency was quickly put on the back burner when he was in office.
Nor is there mention of the reversal of important reforms. Press freedom and ethnic relations are but two examples. Reporters Without Borders rated Taiwan number thirty-five among nations in the world in 2002; two years later Taiwan was number sixty—below Albania and Botswana. Ethnic discrimination became much worse, even sanctioned by the Chen administration—whose leaders even suggested certain minority groups should leave Taiwan.
Jacobs studiously avoids the trademark of the Chen presidency: corruption. The reader, in fact, may get the impression there was none. However, the record shows it prompted a former chairman of Chen's party, Shih Ming-teh (the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] leader who served in prison longer under the KMT than any other) to lead a “million man march” to pressure Chen to resign for the blight he caused. Chen's popularity fell to single digits, and the KMT returned to power in considerable part because of Chen's woefully corrupt government. Chen is currently in prison for various related crimes, as are some of his relatives and cronies. Few in Taiwan, according to opinion polls, think he should not be there.
President Ma is treated with little sympathy. Jacobs focuses mainly on problems Ma encountered in office and his poor handling of some of them. Little or nothing is said about his turning the government into a clean one, a number of reforms he implemented, or the fact that the Taiwan Strait is no longer considered the world's number-one flashpoint—as it was previously. War is now much less likely—for which we all should be happy. Finally, the reader was not led to expect what happened in January 2012. Ma won reelection, getting the majority of votes from all ethnic groups, both women and men, and voters from every age group and every level of education. Meanwhile the KMT won a comfortable victory in the legislative election.
In some ways the analysis in this book is useful; on some issues, such as the difficulties Lee Teng-hui faced as president, it is quite thorough and insightful. However, in the final analysis Democratizing Taiwan is neither objective nor fair. Jacobs patently favors the DPP and does not like the KMT, and that shows.
