One book chapter is hardly sufficient to summarize the political history of modern South Korea and Taiwan.

Following the logic of Mill’s Methods of Differences, this chapter will first establish that, superficially, South Korea and Taiwan have undergone similar historical forces and implemented similar institutional transitions over the last century. It will then point out some subtle historical and institutional differences, which have led to significant divergences in political organization.

• colonized by imperial Japan
• both countries were divided throughout the Cold War, and remain divided
• rule by nationalist dictatorships throughout the Cold War
• both coutnries
• underwent rapid economic development in the 1970s, 1980s
• Third-Wave Democracies
• two-party system within bi-polar partisan camps; for many decades, security concerns over national division and questions of reunification constituted a key difference between the two partisan camps

• presidential system
• unicameral legislature
• administration and goverment are quite similar, inheriting much from colonial period, and adopting many democratic institutions from the US
• electoral systems are structurally similar, as they are built on a similar administrative structure

• local administration
  • Japanese imperial administration of local units differed?
  • in any case, during the authoritarian period, SK government mobilized society down to local level
  • TW’s central government maintained Japanese imperial solution of fostering 2-3 factions within each locale
    • These local factions became a characteristic feature of
• national administration and party institutionalization
  • in TW, the authoritarian government ruled through the party.
    • the KMT was an extremely wealthy party, controlling diverse assets
    • the KMT was also had a massive bureaucracy, resembling a parallel government, much like Marxist-Leninist parties in other states: USSR, PRC, DPRK
    • as a result, the KMT was highly instiutitonalized
  • in SK, the government sidelined party politics and ran directly through the government and military
    • as a result, the conservative party was weakly institutionalized at the time of democratization.
• democratization and party politics
  • in TW
    • whereas the KMT was a Marxist-Leninist party organized to govern, the DPP was light-weight democratic (what style? mass party?) party organized to win elections
    • over the years, as the KMT has been de-funded, it has not adapted well to electoral politics; it still manifests characteristics of its pre-democratic organization: seniority rule, etc.
    • since the Sunflower Movement, the KMT has been on the verge of bankruptcy and has failed to take the presidency or a majority in the National Legislature. in national politics, Taiwan is arguably trending towards a party system dominated by a single party;
    • in local politics, the KMT remains popular in many regions; however, I will argue that the KMT central party has very little control over nominations and agenda-setting; local KMT politicians act more like independent franchises, advertisting the KMT brand while pursuing local interests.
    • meanwhile, the DPP has traditionally snubbed the idea of establishing strong local ties; however, its overwhelming popularity in national politics has led to opportunistic defections from local politicians.
    • Given the two parties’ vast differences, this study takes care to analyze each separately and contrast their respective organizations and outcomes
  • in SK
    • .