Lawyers and social movements in Taiwan: Two waves of mobilization and two generations of activist lawyers

Ching-Fang Hsu

Chapter 5 in Research Handbook on Law, Movements and Social Change, 2023, pp 71-86 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In Taiwan, activist lawyers emerge as two generations following the two waves of societal transformation transpired in the 1990s and 2010s, interlocking with the island state’s regime change. The first wave emerged during the democratization of Taiwan, and the second wave surfaced in response to democratic crisis when the former authoritarian party returned to power. Mobilizing for various collective causes, the two generations of lawyers converge on a fundamental defense of a democratic system and develop an identity of people’s advocate, but diverge on their backgrounds, careers, and relationship with social movement participants and organizations, as well as the strategies they adopt. The two generations of Taiwanese activist lawyers demonstrate how cause lawyering is affected by political transformation and the maturing of civil society. Their emergence and continuation is shaped by two conditions: (a) political opportunity structures that lead lawyers first to the third sector, then to electoral politics, forming different political alliances, and (b) the maturing of the civil society changes how activist lawyers provide legal counsel and how they form their partnership with social movement actors.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Law - Academic; Politics and Public Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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