民进党新潮流系的政治影响力

The Political Influence of DPP’s New Tide Faction

民进党新潮流系在台湾政治中有相当的影响力。本文运用“政治影响力”的概念加以分析,认为:在选举方面,新潮流系向来具有较大的影响力,但现在已经有人提出质疑;在决策方面,新潮流系对党内路线、决策、人事安排、夺取政权等都有相当大的影响,但在某些重大问题上无法对陈水扁产生牵制作用,影响力正在下降,而且目前正在受到其他派系的围攻,处于相当孤立的境地;在政治动员方面,由于脱离了劳工群众,影响力有相当大的衰退。总之,新潮流对当前台湾当局和台湾社会具有一定的政治影响力,但也受到很大的限制,不宜估计过高。“台独”理念是制约新潮流系政治影响力发展的“瓶颈”。

The New Tide Faction (NTF) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been a faction that has strong political influence on Taiwan’s politics. This paper uses the concept of “political influence” to examine NTF from three aspects. First, NTF has always been regarded as influential in elections. However, questions arise recently on how real this influence is. Second, although NTF has strong influence within the DPP in terms of party platform setting, decision making, personnel arrangement, and regime changes, such influence is on the decline. This is manifested by its inability to sway Mr Chen Shuibian on a number of major policy issues. It is also demonstrated by the fact that NTF is increasingly on the defensive and being isolated by other factions of the DPP. Finally, NTF’s influence on political mobilization is significantly weakened due largely to its detachment from the working masses. In summary, while NTF has certain political influence on Taiwan’s authorities and society, one should not overestimate such influence and neglect the constraints it is facing. Promoting Taiwan independence has actually become the bottleneck which limits the development of NTF’s political influence.