The main purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that people¡¦s self/communities perspective plays a critical role in making democratic political institution fully function. There are many problems such as the corruption of local factions, bribery politics, ethnic conflict, and national identity dispute in Taiwan¡¦s young history of democratic system. This thesis claims that the problems lie on the difference between Western and Chinese perspectives of the relations between self and communities.
The perspective of self/communities relations signifies an individual¡¦s thinking of his position in the communities, groups, or society, which he belongs to or lives in, and how he will interact with other people in different communities under different circumstances. Different culture and different historical background result in different perspectives of the relations between self and communities. In chapter Two, we first trace the history of Western political thoughts and the shaping progress of Western perspective of self/communities relations (mainly the perspective from the ¡§individualism¡¨); then, we focus on what the liberal democracy¡¦s perspective of self/communities relations. In chapter Three, we analyze the related concepts of Confucian perspective of self/communities relations, and indicate that Confucianism always teaches people that an individual must benefit the community and be loyal to the superiors. This perspective of self/communities relations supports the imperial institution. But in the last period of Ching Dynasty, some Chinese intellectuals introduced the western democratic thought to the Mainland China, and at last overthrew the imperial institution and intended to build a democratic government. However, these intellectuals and political elites did not realize that the Confucian perspective of self/communities relations has made the practices of Western liberal democracy difficult in both China and Taiwan.
Chapter Four indicates that even KMT government moved to Taiwan, and there were still many intellectuals and political elites anticipating the government to build a political institution, but they still did not focus on the difference between Taiwanese perspectives of self/communities relations and Western individualism. So in chapter Five, we indicate that the problems of Taiwan¡¦s democracy were resulted from the ordinary Taiwanese perspective of self/communities relations. Such perspective emphasizes the interpersonal affections (ren-qing), relationship network (guan-xi), and the division between others and us. This research indicates that the perspective of self/communities relations is very important in studying different political culture and its political institution.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0807101-150900 |
| Date | 07 August 2001 |
| Creators | Huang, Tsao-Huai |
| Contributors | Chih-Yu Shih, Kuo-Shiang Tseng, Ching-Chane Hwang |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0807101-150900 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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