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Survival and Developmemt of Issue Parties A Study with the Green Party of Germany and the New Party of Taiwan as examples

Abstract
Both the Green Party of Germany and the New Party of Taiwan are minority political parties. Yet, they both play a critical role. Their party line is explicitly defined. For the Green Party, they appeal to ¡§Ecological Issues¡¨ and gaine their support from new social movements. As for the New Party of Taiwan, they appeal to ¡§Issues of Anti-Independence of Taiwan and Anti-Black Money¡¨ as their national identification. This has its root in the 1990s, when Taiwan was overheated by the issue of declaring independence or unification with Mainland China. In Germany, the Green Party has successfully constrained the development of nuclear industry, and gained strong support from the public in social well-beings. In Taiwan, the New Party also claims to speak for the common people. This posture enabled the New Party to win high popularity in Metropolitan Taipei, and exert high pressure to the Kuomintang. Indeed, the New Party has had stirred up a hurricane in Taiwan. However, this did not last long. The appeals of both parties have been incorporated into the guidelines and agendas of other larger political parties as well. This was deteriorated by the egocentrism of the key leaders of the parties. As such, the parties were divided, and those leaders tended to play one off against another. They both faced the crisis of disintegration and failure as the third choices for the public in political participation. The Green Party has revised its party line and compromised with reality. They formed a coalition with the Social Democratic Party and won the election of the Bundestag in 1998. A coalition government between the red and green was formed in Germany. In the election of the Bundestag in 2002, the same coalition won again. Indeed, the Green Party has performed exceptionally outstanding in the recent election. They won 8.6 % of the votes, the highest in the history of the Green Party. The New Party in Taiwan adopted the slogan of ¡§ Bring Down Lee Teng-Hui and Protect the Republic of China¡¨ as their appeal. However, some of the topics in their agenda have been absorbed by other political parties. They hardly won support by spelling out this slogan for a number of reasons. Lee Teng-Hui completed his term in 2000. Nativisim has gained momentum in Taiwan. The tension between Taiwan and the mainland intensified. The homogenous People First Party was founded. The strife inside the New Party intensified, coupled with the exodus of elites. All these events severely hampered the reputation of the New Party and their efforts in the election. Therefore, they lost in the election of the Legislative Yuan in 2001, with humiliation. Outsiders describe their downfall as a bubble. Nevertheless, the New Party revitalized themselves by appealing to the common people, which enabled them to win 5 seats in the City Council of Taipei in the 2002 election. This success changed the attitude of the others towards the New Party, as they felt that this party is going to rejuvenate. Therefore, the rise and fall of the Green Party of Germany and the New Party of Taiwan and their strategies for development may well be served as cases for the study of political parties that appeal to political agenda.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0827103-162407
Date27 August 2003
CreatorsHsu, Ya-Wen
Contributorsnone, none, none
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0827103-162407
Rightswithheld, Copyright information available at source archive

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