Taiwan’s Recent Movement Activism and the Sunflower...

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Taiwan’s Recent Movement Activism and the Sunflower Movement Ming-sho Ho (NTU-Sociology) 2015/10/26-7 @Stanford

Transcript of Taiwan’s Recent Movement Activism and the Sunflower...

Taiwan’s Recent Movement Activism and the Sunflower Movement

Ming-sho Ho (NTU-Sociology) 2015/10/26-7

@Stanford

o  The Sunflower Movement (March 18-April 10 2014) against Cross-Strait Trade Service Agreement

o  Protest against curriculum revision (July 31-August 6 2015) o  Student’s disruptive protest o  Poll support for the protestors o  Division within the KMT o  DPP’s pro-movement turn only after the protest o  Partial and indirect success for the movement

Social Movement Resurgence after 2008

n  (1) Revival of the “dormant” movements o  Student movement, “wild

strawberry” (2008) and Sunflower Movement (2014)

o  Labor’s May Day Demonstration o  Farmer’s movement against land

expropriation o  Anti-nuclear movement (after Fukushima

incident)

Social Movement Resurgence after 2008

n  (2) Movements to gain new constituencies o  Artists and literary writers in the environmental

and antinuclear movement o  Lawyers and medical doctors in the Sunflower

movement o  College professors and graduate students to

organize labor union o  High school students against the new

curriculum

Social Movement Resurgence after 2008

n  (3) Significant movement victories in defiance of seemingly closed opportunity o  Anti-casino movement in Penghu (2009) o  The defeat of Kuokuang Petrochemical

Project (國光石化) (2011) o  Anti-media monopoly movement (2012) o  “White-shirt army” and the reform of

military justice (2013) o  Sunflower and the CSSTA(服貿) (2014) o  Nuclear PP4 halted and mothballed (2014)

Social Movement Resurgence after 2008

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2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

o  Protest events in United Daily report

o  Using 25 keywords

o  Excluding Nimbyism and protests by political parties and politicians

Conservative Orientation of the KMT Government

n  Despite Ma’s moderate campaign strategy in 2008, his government put forward many regressive policies that threatened previous movement gains

n  Furloughed workers without protection (2009) (無薪假)

n  Resuming capital punishment in 2010 n  Promoting nuclear power as “low-carbon

energy” n  Continuing disputed construction against the

court decision, ex. To contiue Central Science Park Phase Three (中科三期) and Miramar Resort (美麗灣)

The Increasingly Narrow Policy Channel

o  The decreased number of movement activists in official decision-making channels. n  Committee of Women’s Right Promotion (婦女權益促進委員會)

n  Human Rights Advisory Committee (人權諮詢委員會)

n  Nuclear-Free Homeland Commission (非核家園委員會)

n  Gender Equality Education Commission (性別平等教育委會)

The DPP’s attitude toward social movements

o  Tsai Ing-wen’s friendlier gestures n  Social Movement Department in 2009 n  “Fairness and Justice”(公平正義) in the

2012 election o  In reality, the DPP’s actual attitude is

more realistic and opportunistic n  Opposing Kuokuang Petrochemical only after

2011 n  Turning antinuclear after Fukushima n  Opposing the CSSTA after the congress

occupation o  Movement activists’ suspicion over the

DPP’s instrumentalism

The new discourses of social movements (I)

n  The resurged social movements accentuated the prevalent sense of relative deprivation in that that economic growth was perceived to benefit the few while the majority of the people were left behind.

n  “land justice” (土地正義), “living justice” (居住正義),“generation justice” (世代正義)

n  The sense of relative deprivation among young people

The new discourses of social movements (II)

n  Citizens’ Movement(公民運動) o  Nonpartisanship, beyond the blue and the

green, o  Public participation and civic engagement

as a virtue o  “Amateurs” (素人) or “netizens” (鄉民)

can make a difference

The new discourses of social movements (III)

n  “China factor” increasingly perceived as a threat to Taiwan’s democracy o  Student activism more explicitly on

China factor n  Human right framing in Wild Strawberry

Movement (2009) n  Naming the China factor in Anti-media

monopoly movement (2012) n  Speaking out Taiwan Independence in

Sunflower movement (2014)

Growing radicalism n  Civil disobedience (公民不服從) become

more acceptable among students and activists before the Sunflower Movement o  Blocking the railroad at Taipei Railroad

Station (Feb 2013) by the unemployed workers and students

o  “Occupying” the Ministry of the Interior (Aug 2013) to protest the Tapu land expropriation

n  The late vindication by the court

The Sunflower as inevitable n  The “third seconds incidents” on March 17 as

a triggering event n  The CSSTA controversy is directly related to

o  (1) the sense of growing injustice, o  (2) the failure opposition party (the DPP to

avoid the label of 逢中必反), o  (3) the China factor as a threat

n  The experienced activists o  Students’ nation-wide network after 2008 o  New NGOs established after 2008

The Power of Sunflower n  The political opportunity for Sunflower

Movement o  Ma’s low popularity o  The KMT’s disunion (Ma-Wang rivalry, the

tension between Ma and his successors) n  The Success of Sunflower

o  CSSTA delayed, more oversight on cross-strait negotiation as a consensus, Ma’s mainland agenda derailed

o  Inspiring a new wave of political activisms (recalling KMT lawmakers, congress supervision, amending Referendum Law and voting age etc).

Conclusion n  A new protest cycle began in 2008 n  Taiwan’s civil society’s influences on foreign

relation (cross-strait relation), not just domestic politics, and also the Hong Kong connection

n  To be observed: o  Is the Sunflower Movement of 2014 as a

culmination, a turning point? o  Viability of movement parties in 2016

election? o  If the DPP wins the 2016 presidential

election, how about movement coalition among “citizens’ movement”, China skepticism and the leftwing tendency?

Some references o  Ho, Ming-sho, forthcoming, “Making an Opportunity:

Strategic Bipartisanship in Taiwan’s Environmental Movement,” Sociological Perspectives (accepted).

o  ——, 2015, “Occupy Congress in Taiwan: Political Opportunity, Threat and the Sunflower Movement,” Journal of East Asian Studies 15(1): 69-97.

o  ——, 2014, “The Fukushima Effect: Explaining the Recent Resurgence of the Anti-nuclear Movement in Taiwan,” Environmental Politics 23(6): 965-983.

o  ——, 2014, “A Revolt against Chinese Intellectualism: Understanding the Protest Script in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement of 2014.” Mobilizing Ideas, http://goo.gl/isGj6L, 2014/12/2.