Strategic Adaptation in Taiwanese Social Movements: Navigating Geopolitics, Electoral Transitions, and the Post-Sunflower Era

This paper examines the evolution of strategies adopted by contentious collective actors in highly sensitive geopolitical contexts, as they are simultaneously confronted with three interrelated fields: international relations, state-society dynamics, and internal competition within social movements. It focuses on the evolving strategies of youth and student-led movements in Taiwan between 2012 and 2020, a period marked by rising geopolitical tensions, Taiwan’s strategic positioning in the China–U.S. rivalry, the political transition from Kuomintang (KMT) to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) governance in 2016, and the reassessment of movement strategies following the pivotal Sunflower Movement of 2014. The paper explores how the issues, forms, and strategic engagement of youth activism have transformed in response to these internal and geopolitical shifts. Drawing on a qualitative Protest Event Analysis, interviews with long-term activists, and observations from one year of fieldwork in Taiwan conducted in 2024, the study highlights the dynamics of the youth protest cycle, particularly the strategic diversity that emerged after the Sunflower Movement. Despite a decrease in protest frequency following the electoral transition, youth activism has remained robust, evolving into institutionalized social movements, successfully entering electoral politics, and shifting towards new forms of activism through the rise of civil society organizations focused on countering China’s growing hybrid warfare.