Strategic ambiguity and differentation: ethnic and civic nationalist discourses in Taiwan from 1945 to the 1990s

In: Ethnopolitics, Band 9, Heft 2, S. 151-170

Abstract

This paper analyzes the rational and strategic nature of several ethnic and civic nationalist discourses in Taiwan from 1945 to the 1990s, focusing particularly on the 'New Taiwanese' and 'Taiwanese Nation' discourses in the 1990s. These two discourses employ different strategies, one to be strategically ambiguous and the other more sharply differentiating the ethnic/national boundary in the construction of a Taiwanese national identity. This paper also argues that the political structural conditions essentially condition the formation and transformation of such discourses. Based on the research, it is proposed that nationalist discourses be analyzed from a combined rational and structural perspective. (Ethnopolitics)