he more general dynamic of challenge to KMT hegemony would be sharply factional. Or perhaps it is more accurate to suggest that the factionalism would overstep in various ways the bounds of the discourse of civil society and democratic praxis. Ironically, the KMT's history of iron control of the political environment has, in the context of democratization, put the stability of the political environment itself in doubt. The intensely contested political climate in Taiwan in recent years can be attributed partly to the fact that genuine political competition in the manner of modern democracies is so unfamiliar to so many there.
An important result of the forty-year exclusion of all but the KMT mainlander elite from national governance is that in a new era of civil history, few political players really know how to engage in political discourse and compromise on the democratic model. Members of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have been quoted on the issue of their perception that they lack the experience to govern (e.g., K. Lee, 1996; Shen,
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