Competitive Elections article review
In the first article titled “Competitive Elections,” the authors Tun-Jen Cheng and Gang Lin discuss the similarities in political parties in China and Taiwan. To achieve this, the authors focus on two political parties, namely the KMT and the CCP. Throughout the reading, Cheng and Lin analyze if the competitive election and the party system of Taiwan provides a way of analyzing and describing the institutional change in China. To achieve this, the authors firstly focus on two political parties, namely the KMT and the CCP. Secondly, they look at the conditions for competitive elections in Taiwan, which is followed by the identification of Chinese recent and current developments through the use of Taiwanese experience. The authors at last settle to the conclusion that Chinese elections are becoming more competitive as time goes on since the late 1980s, but the level of competition is narrower in comparison to Taiwanese competition in the 1950s.
The second reading is titled “EAST ASIAN DEMOCRATIZATION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE” by Yu-tzung Chang and Yun-Han Chu. It talks about democracy, which is notable global trouble and how it is viewed in different East Asian countries, including Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Hong Kong. The authors address this issue through various aspects such as challenges facing democratic consolidation in East Asia, and these include bad governance, violation of human rights, and political gridlock, to mention a few. From a comparative perspective, democracy in East Asian counties has been uneasy due to traditional cultures. Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are the countries with the most fragile democratic legitimacy. The extent of democracy from citizen’s point of view showed that in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia, there is no democratic progress. Other things that the authors of the article look at in comparing democracy in East Asian nations include support, preferability, efficacy, satisfaction, and desirability of democracy. They finally access the quality of democracy among these countries by looking at corruption and institutional trust in each.
The two readings have a common interest in two things; Firstly, because they both focus on East Asian countries and secondly because they both concentrate on democracy as a form of leadership. Although China and Taiwan have narrow differences, competition in elections and political parties in these two nations are similar. The existing differences can be attributed to the fact that Taiwan is politically older than China. Still, all the same, the political base of China seems to be similar to that of Taiwan. Most of the East Asian countries do not comprehend democracy, and people’s views ascertain this. This is as a result of the traditional cultures, but progress is being observed in most of the countries as democratic legitimacy is being strengthened. With the good level of education in East Asia, democracy should be strengthened and prioritized as it is the case in most American and African nations.