Networks, Politics, and the Literary Public Sphere: The Foundation of Modern Democracy in Taiwan (1970s–1990s)

This article examines how literature is a networked social space of political repression and resistance, refracting broader contestations over national sovereignty, self-determination, and identity. Politicizing the traditionally apolitical “world of letters” in Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, this article employs a novel analysis of the influence that the literary public sphere wields over political consciousness. Using the historical case of Taiwan’s literary networks from the 1970s to the 1990s, this article asserts that the literary public sphere produces a rational-critical generalization of knowledge and exposure to dissonant perspectives that invigorates civil society by creating intelligentsia. Through intelligentsia, ideas within the Taiwanese literary public sphere birthed powerful Dangwai parties that instituted democracy, informed their platforms, and ushered in a new wave of political elites. The Taiwanese case demonstrates how civic tasks can predict political tasks with enough force to stimulate a unique postcolonial political consciousness and spark a revolution.