Political entrepreneurship and the Ko-P phenomenon in Taiwan’s democratization^*

* This paper was finished in mid-2015, before the January 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections in Taiwan. The outcome of the elections confirms the key points made in this paper.

ABSTRACT

Taiwan’s economic modernization and political democratization after World War II have been praised as good examples for emerging countries. As of 2014, Taiwan has successfully gone through four direct presidential elections and two rounds of peaceful transfer of power. However, continuing sectarian quarrels between the ruling Kuomintang and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party cast doubt on the suitability of democracy for a Confucian society. This pessimism is challenged by the emergence of a new political star. A political novice, Ko Wen-je (aka Ko-P), won a landslide victory in the 2014 Taipei mayoral election, which is seen as a phenomenon. It has significant political implications and has so far inspired changes in the political landscape. The adoption of entrepreneurial strategies, such as identifying problems, leading by example, and team creation, are unprecedented in Taiwan’s political campaign. The Ko-P phenomenon demonstrates a self-correcting mechanism in Taiwan’s political system and bodes well for the future of new democracies, particularly for the Greater China Region.

KEYWORDS:

• Political Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial Process
• Democratization
• Opportunity Discovery
• Authentic Leadership

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the financial support from Atlas Network for the 2015 project of Liberating Asian Enterprise.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* This paper was finished in mid-2015, before the January 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections in Taiwan. The outcome of the elections confirms the key points made in this paper.

1. Ko-P is a short form of Professor Ko Wen-je, a polite way of addressing or referring to him.

2. This is akin to the use of punctuated equilibrium in neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, as argued by Gould and Eldredge (1977).

3. Some prominent internal and international events conflated to push Chiang Ching-kuo to change his policy. The Kaohsiung Incident in 1979 (or Formosa Incident) and its ripple effect galvanized the Taiwanese people both in Taiwan and overseas into political action (Roy, 2003). The murder of Henry Liu, a prominent Chinese-American journalist, implicating top-officials of Taiwan's Military Intelligence Bureau and the second son of President Chiang Ching-kuo, Mr. Chiang Hsiao-wu, drew the attention of and pressure from US Congress (Watchman, 1994: 141). In the mid-1980s, the emerging people power revolution was in fashion and in 1986 the Philippines ousted Fernandes Marcos, known for running a corrupt, undemocratic regime.

4. The anti-corruption campaign was led by a political activist, Shih Ming-teh, the former chairman of the DPP, who led a campaign against Taiwan's DPP President Chen Shui-bian with the name ‘A Million Voices against Corruption—President Chen Must Go’, which involved a protest in front of the Presidential Building on Ketagalan Boulevard. This protest against alleged presidential corruption was a spontaneous civil movement, but its goal was to initiate a change in power at the highest level of government. Significantly, most of the protesters wore red in the demonstrations. It has since been called ‘the Red Tide’, ‘the Red-Shirt Army’, or ‘the Red Phenomenon’ (Shih, 2007).

5. More details of the death of Hung Chung-chiu are available from Wikipedia, BBC news, and Taiwanese newspapers. Incompetent leadership and poor discipline in the military emerged again in early 2015 when it was revealed inadvertently in cyberspace that a Brigade Commander had arranged an unauthorized tour for friends and family members of the sensitive air force Apache helicopter.

6. These personal characteristics can include agreeableness, need for achievement, risk-taking, and desire for independence (Shane, 2004).

7. The KMT previously held 15 of Taiwan's 22 cities and counties, but that ratio was roughly reversed. The KMT won just six seats, while the DPP declared victory in 13, including four of Taiwan's six special municipalities, which make up most of the country's largest cities.

8. In 2006, Ko-P wrote an article titled ‘Reflections, Errors, and Apologies: Chao Chien-ming’, which received considerable media attention and led to a number of politics-related interviews. Chao Chien-ming, the son-in-law of Chen Shui-bian, was embroiled in the corruption, power-abusing, and influence-peddling scandal, while working in Taiwan Hospital. Ko-P argued that Taiwan Hospital and his colleagues should reflect that standing on the sidelines was culpable as well.

9. Ko-P's grandfather, Ko Shih-yuan, was among the 491 victims listed in the 228 Remembrance Document officially published in 2003. As a victim of political persecution, the whole family suffered, and Ko-P's father had to forgo his ambition to be a doctor.

10. With Asperger's syndrome, Ko-P was considered a person lacking empathy. ‘I later was able to empathize because having been a doctor for 30 years, especially in the emergency ward, where you see people leaving forever every day; I experienced this every day’, he told CommonWealth Magazine.

11. Chao Teng-hsiung is known to have greased the palm of a senior officer in a bid to secure a land purchase from Taoyuan city. The three most criticized contracts include Taipei Dome by Far Glory Group, the MeHAS City project, contracting with Radium Life Tech Col, and Syntrend Creative Park with Hon Hai Group (Chung, 2015). MeHAS City is one of the major projects contracted by the city's former administrations that Taipei Mayor Ko-P has placed under investigation by the city's Clean Government Commission. The city is in mediation with Radium Life Tech., seeking NT 242.23 million) in compensation for alleged appraisal fraud.