A Blue Tango: Electoral Competition and the Formation of Taiwan's Opposition Coalition

[[abstract]]This article attempts to explain the formation of Taiwan’s opposition coalition, a phenomenon of critical importance to the unfolding of her democratic politics. Seeing the case as a multi-stage coalition formation game, the analysis shows that an electoral alliance between the opposition parties can be engineered regardless of how they interact in the legislature—as long as the cohesion of their legislative partnership is based on the expectation that they will cooperate in the upcoming presidential election. Another main argument is that the key to a successful opposition alliance in the 2004 presidential election hinges on the ability to produce a profile of divisible goods for the election. Once ready, these goods must be allocated in proportion to the electoral strength of each party. The greatest obstacle for the pan-Blue parties to build a joint campaign team may lie in the fact that the People First Party (PFP) has a better chance to deliver a viable candidate; the party is weaker, however, than the Kuomintang (KMT) in organizational and financial resources.[[fileno]]2040301010020[[department]]社會學研究