Neo‐authoritarianism,polarized conflict and populism in a newly democratizing regime: Taiwan's emerging mass politics

A major obstacle to the consolidation of Taiwan's new democracy lies in the island's emerging mass politics. In recent years, three inter‐related trends have come to characterize Taiwan's political culture and citizen politics: uneven development of mass beliefs in democratic legitimacy, polarization of political cleavage, and a shift to political populism. First, political liberty, meaning primarily freedom of speech and due process, and separation of power meaning parliamentary oversight and judicial independence, have yet to become widely held democratic values among Taiwan's electorate despite visible progress in the development of formal democratic institutions. Next, the polarized conflict over national identity is potentially dangerous because it could result in both internal ethnic strife and external military intervention. Last, an intense lack of confidence in representative institutions and a low level of political tolerance pose a formidable challenge to the development of constitutionalism.