Reimagining Social Movement Society in East Asia: Taiwan’s Changing Acceptance of Contentious Politics

• In Event: 20861 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 12: Rethinking Social Movement Theories

Abstract

Through the conceptual lens of “social movement society” — a framework originally developed in the context of the West — this article takes Taiwan as an empirical case to take a glimpse of the evolving contentious politics of East Asian democracies. By incorporating considerations of civil disobedience and degrees of contentiousness, we aim to paint the societal evolution with a more nuanced brush. Drawing on cross-sectional data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey conducted in 2004, 2014, and 2023, this article operationalizes two key measures, the public’s Perceived Importance of Civil Disobedience and Acceptance of Protest Tactics, to analyze Taiwan’s progression toward a social movement society. Our findings reveal that: (1) The Perceived Importance of Civil Disobedience shows no consistent upward trend as hypothesized, with a notable downward trend in 2014, followed by a recovery in 2023. Regarding party identity, we find an overall pattern where Pan-green supporters place a higher value on civil disobedience, while Pan-blue supporters maintain more conservative attitudes. Surprisingly, an unexpected pattern is found in 2004, where Pan-blue supporters showed higher acceptance of civil disobedience than Pan-green supporters. Further, after incorporating the party alternation, the results show a diminishing party-based divide in 2023. (2) For protest tactics acceptance, higher civil disobedience support correlates with greater tolerance toward protest tactics. However, despite Taiwan’s extensive social movement experience from 2014 to 2023, the data shows declining rather than increasing tolerance for protest tactics, with both camps converging on moderate forms of protest expression. In summary, our findings suggest a more complex picture of public opinion toward contentious politics: a non-linear path toward a social movement society, and the coexistence of higher support for civil disobedience and increasingly conservative acceptance of protest forms.

Authors

• Su-Wei Chiang, McGill University

• Thung-Hong Lin, Academia Sinica

• Chun-Yin Lee, National Chengchi University