Changing Narratives: Civil Society as a Condition of Balanced Governance in Contemporary Taiwan

Abstract

The article delivers an extensive view on the genesis and development of civil society in Taiwan, and presents the results of the analysis of a role that civil society in Taiwan plays in the shaping of institutional order, co-governance (local and national), the intermediation and representation of the individual (also summed in group interest) as well as the public interest in relation to the other actors of the social system (the state, the market and family). Taiwanese socio-political transformation is a model example of the transition from authoritarian rule into a democratic system. Conglomeration of socio-economic prerequisites lays as the basis for specific political culture of Taiwanese society, which not only has a significant impact on the participation of different groups of citizens in the public sphere, on their position in the social and civil dialogue, but primarily on their relationships with state institutions.