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Classing Ethnicity. Class, Ethnicity, and the Mass Politics of Taiwan's Democratic Transition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

David D. Yang
David D. Yang
Affiliation:
Stanford University, [email protected]
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Abstract

Although Taiwan is widely regarded as one of the purest examples of middle-class-driven democratization, this article suggests that the conventional accent on the middle class is misplaced. Instead, the true heroes in the struggle for democracy were the island's working classes, although proper recognition of this fact requires an empirically derived understanding of class that looks beyond formal labor politics. Although the author does not dispute the importance of ethnicity in Taiwanese politics, the findings clearly indicate that ethnic identity was in itself a class issue, as the island's working classes were the most deeply attached to a nativist Taiwanese identity, while members of the middle classes were far more successfully assimilated into the elite “national” culture. The Taiwanese experience thus provides a reminder that many political phenomena apparently framed in ethnic, sectarian terms are in fact undergirded by essentially class-based grievances.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , July 2007 , pp. 503 - 538
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2007

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