2
Idea and Authority: The Roles of Intellectuals in Environmental Justice
Campaigns in China and Taiwan
1. Introduction
Social movements theorists tend to believe that the energy of social movements was
based on the widespread grievances against governments. In other words, once a society
accumulates enough grievances, social movements will naturally occur and call for
response from the authority. Following pluralist thoughts, the authority will then react to
these issues according to their potential damage to the legitimacy of the governance.
While it appears to be a common sense, it has begun to lose the validity.
There are some similarities between environmental justice campaigns in Taiwan and
China. One of them is that they both are generally much more tolerated than the other
social movements are by the governments, regardless of their different strengths. This
phenomenon apparently counters the notion of pluralism. It calls for an alternative
explanation. While environmental justice campaigns in Taiwan and China have
something in common in terms of receiving higher tolerance, those in Taiwan are more
far-reaching and initiated 20 years earlier than those in China. What factor makes the
similarity and differences between them?
Convention