Beyond the Bipartisan System in the Taipei Mayoral Elections—Rise of Market-Oriented Strategies in Electoral Campaigns?

Current literature on political marketing seldom investigates elections in non-Western regions or countries. The analysis of the Taipei mayoral elections (TMEs) can fill this academic vacuum. This article studies the election campaigns for the TMEs between 1994 and 2018 to understand and analyse the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:China report (New Delhi) 2023-02, Vol.59 (1), p.7-24
Main Authors: Chan, Tayden Fung, Zhao, Luna L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Elections
Employment
Local politics
Marketing
Markets
Mayors
Political advertising
Political campaigns
Political parties
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Summary:Current literature on political marketing seldom investigates elections in non-Western regions or countries. The analysis of the Taipei mayoral elections (TMEs) can fill this academic vacuum. This article studies the election campaigns for the TMEs between 1994 and 2018 to understand and analyse the political marketing strategies used by candidates and political parties in Taiwan, an East Asian democracy. While the New Party (NP) stuck to a product-oriented strategy, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) employed sales-oriented strategies in most TMEs. This article argues that political parties with strong ideologies find it hard to use the market-oriented electoral strategy. The victory of Ko Wen-je in 2014 and 2018 TMEs can be analysed in terms of the successful employment of a market-oriented strategy. However, given the changing environment of local politics, Ko and his party, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), may not follow market-oriented strategies in future TMEs.
ISSN:0009-4455
0973-063X
DOI:10.1177/00094455231155329