Description:
Examining the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) since its establishment through the aftermath of the most recent national elections in January 2020, this book investigates Taiwan's most important movement party over the last two and a half decades.
Review Quotes:
Dafydd Fell's recent academic monograph, Taiwan's Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan, is not to be missed for those who are interested in or who study party politics in Taiwan. Drawing on close to a decade of research and observation, the book details the ebbs and flows, as well as the transformations, experienced by the Green Party in Taiwan since its founding. The book also focuses on the Social Democratic Party and Trees Party as Green Parties.
Brian Hioe, New Bloom Magazine
This study on Taiwan's Green Party not only provides an exhaustive analysis of its rocky 25-year history, but also gives a face to its passionate, idealistic members who carry on despite minimal electoral success.
Taipei Times
Applying a wide range of theoretical frameworks to plot and explain small party development, this book will appeal both to students and scholars of Taiwan's politics and civil society but also to readers with an interest in small parties and particularly environmental parties and movements.
Li-Ping Chen, New Books Network
Fell offers a number of reasons why TGP is worth studying, including the rise of Greens globally. This piece of scholarship is the first book-length study on an Asian green party. Moreover it studies a party that has a unique role due to Taiwan's international isolation. Alongside the party's electoral ups and downs, Fell also tracks their global engagement and contributions to Taiwan's increasingly important civil society-led public diplomacy.
Gray Sargeant, American Journal of Chinese Studies
Based on a solid ethnography of green party candidates in Taiwan over a decade, this book offers an in-depth analysis that contributes - beyond the case of Taiwan - to research on green politics and movement parties challenging mainstream parties.
Paul Jobin, Party Politics
There is never a dull moment in Taiwan's party politics, but it is a rare gift to our area of study that a new book manages to bottle the excitement felt by party politics scholars studying a contested state like Taiwan. Dafydd Fell's new book, Taiwan's Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan, manages this feat.
Lev Nachman, International Journal of Taiwan Studies
Fell argues that 'at a time when China is attempting to squeeze Taiwan's international space at every possible opportunity, the Green's global activism represents an important component of Taiwan's civil society-led public diplomacy'. Readers interested in Taiwanese politics should read this book, and anyone who wants to better appreciate the vital role smaller parties perform in a democracy.
Cara Camcastle, Environmental Politics
The study offers a vital contribution to expanding research on politics and society in Taiwan to extend beyond questions of identity politics vis-a-vis China or the influence of cross-Strait relations, although Fell does touch on these issues where relevant. By drawing on the GPT's engagement in regional and international green parties and other activist social movements, Fell presents a view of politics and social movements on Taiwan as they relate to broader issues within the Asia-Pacific Region and the world.
Alessandra Ferrer, China Information