From structural resistance to the performance of crisis

Although literature on Taiwanese populism often characterises it as a bottom-up civic movement, this paper argues it has evolved into a top-down political communication strategy employed by political actors. Drawing on Moffitt’s populism as a political style, this paper introduces the novel concept of ‘imaginary anti-authoritarianism’ to characterise Taiwan’s latest populist dynamics. This concept explains how these actors manipulate the spectre of authoritarianism to perform a crisis, constructing opponents as threats to the liberal democracy of ‘the people’. This paper operationalises the concept into two modes. Externally, it constructs a populist antagonism between the democratic life of ‘the people’ and ‘authoritarianism’ to counter the China factor. Internally, it weaponises authoritarian labels to engage in partisan competition. Consequently, this paper argues that Taiwan’s populism has shifted from a historical necessity of structural resistance to a strategic performance of imaginary struggle.