Chapter IV The Sunflower Movement and Its Impact on State-Society Relations
4.2 The Impacts of the Sunflower Movement
4.2.2 The influence over democratic discourses
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4.2.2 The influence over democratic discourses
Holding political parties accountable
The Sunflower Movement had successfully demonstrated that people can even reclaim or perform their rights outside the electoral period. The civil society was disappointed with representative democracy and tried to rebuild political
accountability. (Liu, 2015, p.15) It illustrated that party performance was evaluated not merely during the fixed-term elections, but also during the non-electoral period. In 2004 and 2014, Academia Sinica conducted survey projects focusing on civil rights.
The data shows citizens believe that political parties have failed to provide real policy choices for their people. The percentage of respondents who agree on that statement had risen from 36.9 in 2004 to 54.2 in 2014 shortly after the Sunflower Movement.
People believed that they were not allowed to realize their policy choices. In other words, people’s political preference was not successfully transformed into policies.
The growing number depicts the representative party politics had failed citizens political expectation.
Likewise, according to the 2014 survey data, vicious competition among parties and politician corruption as the things people hated the most far surpass the other social and economic issues. The political dissatisfaction has reached an apex about the irreconcilable party politics. The continuing vicious circle of the political power engagement between the KMT and the DPP has stagnated Taiwan’s democratic development. Ideological conflicts leading by the blue-green feuds have been dictated Taiwan’s political environment for decades. According to Wang’s study, he concludes that “they [the KMT and the DPP] compete on issues related to Taiwan’s status and national identity. However, compared to countries with a similar level of economic development and democratic experience, they make substantially more clientelistic
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effort but develop less pronounced policy positions.” (Wang, 2012, p. 180) The existing political participation channels are unable to provide an efficient feedback mechanism.
The Sunflower Movement transcends political party conflicts and targets on democratic values. It was described that “Taiwan’s domestic politics underwent a sea change post-Sunflower.” (Smith, 2015) The Nine-in-One elections on November 29, 2014, made some explanation of what kinds of changes had been made in the
domestic politics. The civil society demonstrated its strength through votes. The result of the local elections well depicted how the ruling party failed to fulfill the will of its people. (Huang, 2014) Not only because the KMT lost grounds in its traditional strongholds, but also because it was unable to win in the Taipei Mayoral election, considered as a springboard for the presidency.
Surprisingly, an independent candidate, Wen-je Ko won the Taipei Municipal Mayor election. The conventional wisdom was that the KMT took more advantages in winning the Taipei Mayoral election comparing to the chance of the DPP or other small parties. However, polarized campaign strategies proved to be null when Ko won the Taipei Mayoral election. It also signifies a new age for young political aspirants to success even without parties’ support. The victory came from the desire of fresh new power from the society. A news report of Taipei Times on July 29 states that this surprising result represents for “an independent thinking of civil society dominated by the middle class and intellectuals”. (EDITORIAL: Implications of Taipei mayoral race, 2014) It is because of the movement that the citizens become more and more aware of political issues. People are asking for a more justified political procedure, a
transparent cross-strait issues negotiation process, and a more democratic participation mechanism.
A rising civil society is actively engaging with the state. Ko Wen-je in some
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ways symbolized the power of citizens since he had no robust political background.
He stood for a small citizen against other candidates who were back up by parties.
From the winning of Ko, we can see that the society made signals to the ruling party for policy adjustments in the future. (Ramzy, 2014) The KMT which failed such a critical election would definitely re-evaluate their pro-China policy. As for the DPP and other parties, Ko’s victory reminded them to be more receptive to the people’s concerns.
Increasing political efficacy
Participating in social movements is a kind of civic training that increases the participants’ faith and political responsibility. Political participation enlarges participants’ capacity for respecting the beliefs or practice or others. It also strengthens the political attachment to plural interests and values. Accordingly, democratic participation develops citizens’ political efficacy. (Pateman, 1970, p.105) The political efficacy is defined as the “feeling that individual political action does have, or can have, an impact upon the political process”. (Campbell, Gurin, and Miller, 1954, p. 187) It consists with the concept of internal and external efficacy15.
The political efficacy seems to increase after the Sunflower Movement.
Academia Sinica’s Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS) investigates the changes of social phenomena in Taiwan. Many of its survey topics are conducted every five-year
15 The internal political efficacy suggests that people believe in their ability “to understand and participate effectively in politics”. (Craig, Niemi, & Silver 1990, p. 290) Citizens who believe in their abilities to sway politics are more likely to participate in the political process. The external political efficacy indicates people’s perception about “the responsiveness of governmental authorities and institutions”. (Niemi, Craig & Mattei, 1991, p. 1408) Clarke, Kornberg, & Scotto further elaborate it as the belief that “political elites and governmental institutions are responsive to citizen demands” (Clarke, Kornberg, & Scotto, 2010, p. 107)
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cycle. Comparing its survey reports, they indicate that the sense of political efficacy has increased after August 2014. The perceptions of political efficacy had been low over the past decade. However, the survey conducted in August 2014, shortly after the Sunflower Movement, shows a great improvement on both the internal and external political efficacy among Taiwan. Some related questions probe the changing of citizens’ political efficacy. In 2004, 27.3 percent of respondents disagreed that they have no influence on the government’s actions. Comparing with 2014, the number of the interviewees who disagreed with the statement increased to 31.3 percent. The findings imply that more citizens tend to disagree with the notion that they have no power in swaying political decisions. The increased level of disagreement with this statement reflects an increased level of internal political efficacy among Taiwan after 2014.
Likewise, the increasing external political efficacy is shown more obviously in the following survey questions. 35.7 percent of interviewees believed that “the Legislative Yuan would prudently reconsider their requests when they take some action” in 2014, while it was only 23.9 percent in 2004. A more specific question about the possibility to take political actions also increases. The percentage in agreement with “the possibility for people to take action towards unjustified law making” has increased from 24.3 to 30 percent. These positive developments in political efficacy imply that citizens are more willing to engage in the political system and take their political responsibilities. People are taking more involved political attitudes rather than leaving all of the political decisions to the politicians.
According to the aforementioned survey data, it implies that there are surely some political changes on the political efficacy after August 2014. To consider retrospectively, the students first demanded to retract and renegotiate the CSSTA. It resulted in a suspended negotiation process toward the signing of the CSSTA. Then,
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their focus changed to a procedural demand for setting up a Cross-Straits Agreements Monitoring Framework (CSAMF). The social groups had taken an active role in the political decision making process. They sent a draft of the Cross-Straits Agreement Monitoring and the speaker of the Legislative Yuan promised that the CSSTA would be shelved until the monitoring regulation was made into law.
It demonstrated that self-motivated social organizations were taking more political engagement to enhance the level of a justified democratic process. The Sunflower Movement manifested that the citizens have capacity to enact their civil responsibility and affect politics. A more active role of civil society has been witnessed after the time period of the Sunflower Movement. Citizens’ participation encourages them “to believe that they are ultimately controlling the
government …and keeping them committed to the existing system" (Olsen, 1982, p.
6).
Emerging deliberative democracy
Reasoned discussions and communicative forums were held during the process of the Sunflower Movement. The process was equipped with a general concept of
deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy emphasizes political participation that “citizens can pool information and ideas, bring local knowledge to the table, establish greater levels of equality and political opportunity, and the like”. (Leib, 2004, p.3) A series of street forums were held outside the Legislative Yuan in Zhongshan South road and Jinan road. There were public forums such as Liberation Forum, Street Corner mini-forum, and Street Corner Little democratic Experiment. They discussed issues about the China factors, the economic and political structure, and some other CSSTA related issues.
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These public forums provided a platform for citizens to understand the possible economic impacts. The issues also reflected what worried the people the most.
These kinds of “talk-centric” discussions performed the concept of deliberative democracy since it purported to provide all citizens with equal chances of expression and to reach collective judgment and mutual understanding. (Chambers, 2003, p.308) The process helps to increase participants’ levels of political knowledge. The forming of deliberative democracy helps citizens to encompass more reflective and
comprehensive judgments. (Luskin & Fishkin, 2004, pp.7-10; Sturgis, Roberts, &
Allum 2005, p.30)
In addition, deliberative democracy cultivates citizens with sophisticated political participation, trust, and matured civic attitudes and behaviors. (Farrar et al., 2004, p.22) The Sunflower Movement activated the awareness of civic participation in which citizens became more engaged into the political process. Widely spread issue discussions facilitated the changing of civic culture. This is because deliberation can generate more sophisticated and participatory citizens. (Gastil, Deess, and Weiser 2002, pp.592-594; Fung & Wright, 2003, pp.163-164) As we can see one of the major requests of the Sunflower Movement was to hold a citizens’ constitutional meeting.
Open public forums are where multiple issues are discussed and civic engagement marched on a journey to a deeper democracy. It is a sign of the people’s demand for a new way of political participation. The citizens take more responsibilities involving public governance, policy monitoring, a decision making process, and resource allotting. This confirms Nabatchi’s definition that deliberative democracy pursues the goal of “infusing government decisions making with reasoned discussion and
collective judgment of citizens”. (Nabatchi, 2010, p. 2) The essence of deepened democracy is realized through moderate civic engagement.
Moreover, the participants of the movement have enlarged from a student
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movement to a wide ranged civic participation. According to a survey with a sample of 1,000 respondents conducted by the National Taipei University department of Sociology, 56 percent of the participants in the Sunflower Movement are students while 44 percent are non-students. (Chen, 2014) The internet contributes to effective civic engagement and lowers the costs of political participation. The highly exposed information gains substantial debates, providing a clear path to political deliberation.
Information had been spread widely through social network sites, online news, and Bulletin Broad System (BBS). According to the same survey as previous mentioned, Facebook appears to be the source of most information for the Sunflower Movement participants. 59.1 percent of the respondents said that they obtain information from the Facebook. Other internet media as information resource is 22.7 percent, while the traditional media such as the Television, newspaper, and radios is only 12.9 percent.
(Chen, 2014) The prevailing of the internet becomes the most important resource for the social participants. The issues being inserted into citizens’ lives become salient and gain social concern. The younger generation is more familiar with the
accessibility of the internet. This not only increases the speed of the spread of information, but also encourages the participation of the younger generation.
The internet decreases the cost of collective actions. It subverts traditional ways of social mobilization with less costs and extensive attention. Social mobilizations are triggered and organized through the internet. (Chen, Change, & Huang, 2015, p.15-17) This changes the way of internal resource mobilization. Networks formation,
volunteer recruitment, and resource gathering and distribution, mostly are completed on the virtual social network system. Young and new social activists can be recruited through the online social networks. The time needed for information gathering has decreased as well. Public opinion becomes a great pressure to the state. It challenges government decisions and persuades the authority to temporarily cease political
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procedures. A high degree of pressure urges the KMT to respond to the demands of the social groups. The Sunflower Movement possesses a high ability of resource mobilization and imposes immediate threats on the authority to influence the political process.
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