The Taiwan Strait is considered to be one of the most tense areas in the world, but despite this, the area has not been the scene of a major armed conflict since the Second World War. Even though the situation is perceived to be tense, both China and Taiwan have been able to manage their differences reasonably well. Over the period 1996-2022, the situation in the Taiwan Strait was seen as controllable. After the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, the overall military tension between the two sides was in a stable state. Encounters were generally dealt with diplomatically. This trend was irrevocably reversed when Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022. China has normalized its military deterrence against Taiwan and has expressed peaceful reunification less and less in public. The United States’ more aggressive calls against unilateral changes to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait rhetorically confirm the 2022 change.

Despite the existence of different opinions, historians and sociologists still generally agree that Mainland China and Taiwan belong to the same core range of the Greater China Cultural Circle, speak Chinese, share similar cultural practices, and are genetically similar. And unlike the multi-ethnic countries in Southeast Asia where some Chinese are part of the population, both Mainland China and Taiwan are countries where Han-ethnicity is the majority.

The issue of the Taiwan Strait is legally an extension of the civil war between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Kuomintang (KMT). Which means that the Mainland China and Taiwan are still in a nominal state of war, and the two sides have not signed an armistice agreement of any kind. Therefore, legally speaking, the Taiwan authorities represent the Government of the Republic of China (ROC), while mainland China represents the Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

I. History and Analysis of Mainland China’s Policy toward Taiwan

1. Mao Zedong’s China–Postscript to the Revolution

In 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC) recovered most of the China’s land, and the strategic decision made by Chiang Kai-shek under the leadership of the Kuomintang (KMT) was to withdraw to Taiwan. There is an old Chinese saying “when there are green hills, there will be wood to burn”, which means that as long as the Kuomintang (KMT) regime, army and financial resources are still there, there will be a chance to regain the whole of China, and it would be better to retreat to Taiwan rather than fighting the Communist Party of China (CPC) on the ultra-long front in Mainland China. In hindsight, Chiang Kai-shek made the right defensive decision. The Communist Party of China (CPC) lacked sufficient amphibious and sea-crossing capabilities at the time. Additionally, they were able to rely on the U.S. containment strategy against communism, with the Americans regularly sending the Seventh Fleet to patrol the Taiwan Strait.

In addition to the military reasons, China’s domestic economy was poor and not improving: people’s lives were in ruins because of the years of war. The Communist Party of China (CPC) long relied on popularity and the masses to gain an advantage in the civil war; but then failed to deliver economic growth. It was well known that if the Communist Party of China (CPC) fails to gain the confidence of the people in the short term, it may trigger a new round of civil war. Therefore, the Communist Party of China (CPC) needed to divert a lot of energy from domestic reconstruction. At the same time, with the outbreak of the Korean War, the Communist Party of China (CPC) needed to devote a large amount of military resources to the Korean battlefield. At the end of the Korean War, Mainland China’s military strength was greatly depleted, and the Kuomintang (KMT) had already carried out five years of social and military construction in Taiwan. It can be said at time neither the Kuomintang (KMT) nor the Communist Party of China (CPC) had the ability to launch a large-scale offensive against the other side.

Unable to do much else given their weak positions, both Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang (KMT) resorted to low-cost ideological war on the other side’s territory. The Kuomintang (KMT) carried out destructive operations by planting spies and agents in Mainland China. The Communist Party of China (CPC) supported the communist movement in Taiwan. So although CPC continued to claim that Taiwan was the territory of the People’s Republic of China, it used the communist movement to try to dismantle the Kuomintang (KMT)’s dictatorship in Taiwan.

There are even claims from Taiwan side that in the 1960s, with the Cultural Revolution taking place and the gap between Mainland China’s overall power and Taiwan’s widening, Mao Zedong had wanted Taiwan to become independent. Doing so would have allowed the international community to fully recognize the Communist Party of China (CPC) as the sole government representing Mainland China and resolving the long-standing problems of international recognition.

However, the CPC need for Taiwanese independence changed with a series of political events such as the People’s Republic of China gaining a seat in the United Nations, Nixon’s visit to China, and the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States. In 1972 with Nixon’s visit to China, the Shanghai Communiqué was issued, recognizing there was only one China, but not stating the Government of the People’s Republic of China was the sole legitimate government representing China. In the same year, the U.S. and China signed the August 17 Communiqué, which reaffirmed the “one China” policy, while the U.S. side promised to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan and ultimately reach a solution to the issue.

Of course, this position was ultimately a realist move to end the war in Vietnam and was pragmatically self-serving for Nixon; it did not necessarily mean the United States exclusively supports the one-China policy. With the 1972 election approaching, Nixon was trying to end the Vietnam War. He had already committed to end the Vietnam War during his successful 1968 campaign, but the United States was still stuck in Vietnam when he was being re-elected. With China as the main supporter of North Vietnam, the U.S. provided China with some benefits, including a declaration about one China policy; it was convinced North Vietnam not to attack South Vietnam and the U.S troops when the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, and provided Nixon with political capital during the U.S. campaign season in which he could brag that the U.S. had won a victory in Vietnam.

Overall, during the Maoist era, the Mainland China’s policy toward Taiwan shifted to a forced expression of peaceful intentions based on limited strength. However, building a dominating force remained a priority consideration, and the Communist Party of China (CPC) conducted a number of military deterrence operations against Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s. Mao died in 1976, and the Cultural Revolution ended after a series of intra-party battles within the Communist Party of China (CPC).

2. Deng Xiaoping’s China–One Country, Two Systems

Mao’s health was not what it used to be in the 1970s, and he did not see the day when China and the United States fully establish diplomatic relations. After Mao’s death, the Communist Party of China (CPC) went through a series of internal fights. The first was the purge of the Gang of Four, also known as the Huairentang Incident, which established the end of the Cultural Revolution. Mao’s immediate successor was not Deng Xiaoping, but Hua Guofeng, who was considered the representative of the conservative faction of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and continued to support Mao’s line, putting forward the famous “Two Whatever” ideology, which stated: We (CPC) will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made. We (CPC) will unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave.” This ideology was later used by Deng Xiaoping to weaken Hua Guofeng’s power and make him the leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC), as he gradually gained power and put forward the idea of “economic construction as the center” at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and further established the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s “Seek Truth from Facts” style of work, which made him the defacto leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC). This dramatic policy shift also pushed forward the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States.

On December 16, 1978, on the eve of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the U.S., both sides issued the Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and the U.S. In the communiqué, the U.S. formally recognized the government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, acknowledged that Taiwan was a part of China, and severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan, terminating the Mutual Defense Treaty. At the same time, the United States emphasized the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Mainland China does not mean that it agrees with the Mainland China to resolve the Taiwan issue by force. In the same year, Deng Xiaoping visited the U.S., and the Chinese leader, who liked to smoke and was not very tall, made a deep impression on politicians and people in the United States.

The establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States and Deng’s visit to the U.S. marked the breaking of the ice in Sino-U.S. relations and an ideological alignment in the Cold War. Li Shenzhi, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Director of the Institute of American Studies, who accompanied Deng on his visit to the U.S., asked Deng on the plane, “Why do we attach so much importance to our relationship with the U.S.?” Deng replied, “The countries that followed the United States have become rich, while the countries that followed the Soviet Union are still poor.” He also suggested that “socialism is not characterized by poverty, but by wealth.” As the United States was mired in the Vietnam War, China wanted to open and develop; meanwhile border disputes with the Soviet Union further pushed China toward the United States. In the 1970s and 1980s, the world landscape was effectively one capitalist and one socialist country, China and the United States, united against the Soviet Union.

After the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the U.S., the relationship between Mainland China and Taiwan has become more of a sub-topic of Sino-Western relations and Sino-U.S. relations. Under Deng Xiaoping, with the reform and opening up, any other issues were given way to the economy and the development of people’s livelihoods. Deng Xiaoping proposed the development strategy of “hide the strength, bide the time”, which was gradually abandoned until the Xi Jinping era. So at that time, political, diplomatic, and military goals would take precedence over economic ones.

During Deng Xiaoping’s leadership, Mainland China’s policy toward Taiwan can essentially be considered conciliation. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore, a country that was considered to be one of the dominant ethnic groups of the Chinese who practiced a good balance of democracy and order. Deng made a promise to Lee Kuan Yew that he would not export the revolution to Taiwan. The same was true in the case of Taiwan, where there was no concession in principle and the principle of one China (People’s Republic of China) was not changed. This ultimately promoted cross-strait exchanges.

At the same time, Deng put forward the policy of “peaceful reunification, one country, two systems”, and the one country, two systems formula currently in use in Hong Kong and Macao. This was first designed for the peaceful reunification of Taiwan. The core of this policy was to allow Taiwan to maintain its current social system and a high degree of autonomy while adhering to the “one China” principle, i.e., Taiwan could continue to maintain its capitalist system and enjoy a high degree of autonomy, while Mainland China continued to adhere to the socialist system. Deng Xiaoping made it clear Taiwan could retain its own military forces and that China would not send troops or administrators to Taiwan. Despite this, and in keeping with the longstanding and even current Communist Party of China (CPC) foreign policy, Deng also stated he would not rule out the use of force, even if his overall preference was strongly for peaceful reunification.

During this period, although there were various domestic political events within China, the overall trend of opening up to the outside world remained unchanged. The overall shift in the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s political stance from the extreme left to the left of center or even to the center helped significantly to improve the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s political status globally, and secured the recognition of more countries and the severance of diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (ROC) Taiwan.

3. Jiangzemin’s China–From Conciliation to Deterrence

Jiang Zemin is considered to have been the most Western-like style leader in the history of the Communist Party. He speaks English and Russian fluently. Every leader in China seems to have unique political wisdom from a historical perspective, and Jiang Zemin is no exception. His eloquence in dealing with journalists demonstrates his wisdom. On the Taiwan issue, as more complex domestic reforms were carried out and the international situation shifted, Jiang became more flexible in his practical maneuvering on the Taiwan issue, but overall experienced a shift from conciliation to deterrence.

Although Jiang’s early period and Deng’s late period were themselves overlapping, during Jiang Zemin’s early years, Mainland China’s policy toward Taiwan was still a continuation of Deng Xiaoping’s late conciliation policy. The 1992 Consensus was signed in Hong Kong by Mainland China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). The 1992 Consensus recognized both sides of the Taiwan Strait were part of one China under a vague statement of principle. This is a legacy of Mainland China’s policy of conciliation with Taiwan, whereby the concept of “China” is strategically blurred to further expand exchanges with the Taiwanese side, to put the relationship between Mainland China and Taiwan on the track of benign and peaceful communication, and to curb the tendency towards independence.

China’s conciliation did not last long, on January 30, 1995, Jiang Zemin made his famous speech on Taiwan policy, in which he put forward “Jiang’s Eight Points” or “Eight Propositions”, which are regarded as the core elements of Jiang’s policy towards Taiwan. In general, the policy statement falls somewhere between Conciliation and Deterrence, but in view of the growing popularity of the island’s independence forces, the timing of Deterrence is preferred to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence. Later that year, Taiwan’s President Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the U.S. was seen as undermining the tacit diplomatic understanding of one China between China, the U.S., and Taiwan. The Mainland China viewed Lee’s visit as an attempt to promote “progressive Taiwan independence” and to enhance Taiwan’s diplomatic status by increasing its international influence as a subject to challenge the “one-China” policy.

During two important events, Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the United States and Taiwan’s first direct presidential election, Mainland China conducted two deterrent military exercises against Taiwan, involving missile launches and artillery shelling. As the exposure of the spying incident showed that at that time the Mainland China was prepared for direct forceful reunification of Taiwan in the most extreme cases. Even though this was less likely, it still triggered the involvement of the United States in China-Taiwan relations by sending two aircraft carriers into the Taiwan Strait, which acted as a deterrent against an escalation in violence.

After that, China’s conciliation with Taiwan entered a frozen stage. At that time, China’s comprehensive national and military power was still limited, so it could not launch a direct war against Taiwan without regard to other matters, and China lacked certainty in this regard. Deterrence strengthened China’s linguistic claim to further sovereignty over Taiwan in response to the Taiwan Teng-hui Lee government’s increasingly obvious tendency towards Taiwan independence. Based on this policy lead, Mainland China has reduced its release of goodwill toward the Taiwanese side because, based on the past decades, conciliation has not strengthened the island’s leadership and popular expectations for peaceful cross-strait unification, but rather has promoted the development of independent forces in Taiwan. So, Mainland China’s
late attempts to deter Taiwan’s leadership and population, including by military means, have in fact further damaged relations between Mainland China and Taiwan. But this was clearly a choice which had no choice; Mainland China in fact acquiesced to Taiwan’s de facto independence, but at the same time drew a line in the sand to maintain the status quo for Taiwan – “the day Taiwan declares independence is the
day Mainland China will reunify by force of arms”.

4. Hujintao’s China–Deterrence to Conciliation

Hu Jintao, the first Communist Party of China (CPC) leader after the institutionalization of the succession of the CPC leaders, was more open-minded overall, but did not dramatically change cross straight relations, choosing to carry over policies. At the beginning of Hu Jintao’s tenure, as China had just joined the WTO, the overall tension was not as strong as it had been during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, although the deterrence strategy continued. As the pro-independence tendency of the Chen Shui-bian government became increasingly obvious, Hu Jintao used legal means to strengthen the Taiwan policy, which also indirectly reflected Hu’s legal thinking and concept. In 2005, China’s “Anti-Secession Law” clearly stipulated if the Taiwan authorities took “major incidents of splitting the country”, the Mainland could take “non-peaceful means and other necessary measures” to maintain national unity.

In 2008, Taiwan completed its second post-war election, with the Kuomintang (KMT) regaining power and the new president Ma Ying-jeou once again recognizing the 1992 Consensus, which provided the basis for Mainland China’s policy toward Taiwan to return to conciliation. Hu further promoted cross-Strait economic, trade and cultural exchanges during his tenure, and pushed for the signing of the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). His Taiwan policy is more inclined towards peaceful reunification, emphasizing win-win situations through cooperation.

5. Xijinping’s China–The Great Power Coming Back

In 2012, Xi Jinping, the scion of a prominent red family, became the fifth- generation leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC). During the early years of Xi’s rule, from 2012-2016, the Kuomintang (KMT)’s Ma Ying-jeou government continued to govern in Taiwan, maintaining a relatively stable relationship between the two sides. Both sides pushed for the signing of The Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA), although it did not materialize. For the first time since 1949, the leaders of the two sides met in 2015: the tone of the meeting was friendly and cordial.

It appeared as if a continuation of the position of negotiations from the previous 40 years was possible. In 2016, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected as Taiwan’s leader. She has led the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) through the past few years in a grueling and ultimately successful effort to continually reform and win over the support of the Taiwanese people. Since Ing-wen’s election, over the past eight years, the relationship between the Taiwan authorities and the Mainland China authorities has not been bad, but it has been complicated by the US’s regional policy. The Obama administration’s proposed Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy has resulted in China being put increasingly under the spotlight.

The geopolitical situation in the Asia-Pacific has also hardened with several of countries changing governments to those less friendly with China: Moon Jae-in coming to power in South Korea, Duterte in the Philippines, Vietnam’s Nguyen Phu Trong consolidating his power, and even Indonesia’s Joko pursuing a more balanced policy between China and the United States. All of this is based on the growth of China’s power and the international profile that China has largely maintained since its reform and opening up, but more realistically, of course, because of the financial benefits that China has been able to provide to these countries. With issues including occupation and ownership of areas in the South China Sea and the Diaoyu Islands, the world has developed a hardened stance against China’s position on Taiwan.

Donald Trump’s new administration further isolated China. The Chinese government continued to bet on Clinton in the 2016 election, believing instead of supporting an unpredictable populist leader, it would be better to continue to deal with the Clintons, a Democratic Party establishment candidate which it knows well and has more ties to China. But Beijing miscalculated; Trump’s election changed the entire geopolitical landscape of the Asia-Pacific region for the future of Xi’s second term. Perhaps because the Chinese side is fully betting on his rival, or perhaps because, as a businessman, he saw the threat of China and the damage it is doing to American business and industrial interests, China became Trump’s first target.

Given the hardening of other governments and the U.S, tensions heightened further with the Tsai Ing-wen government. Although it did not declare independence, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s refusal to recognize the 1992 Consensus and the non-affiliation of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait caused China to change its policy towards Taiwan from conciliation to deterrence, and in the following years.

In years which have followed, diplomatic exchanges and progress towards unification between China and Taiwan have dropped to a low level. The Mainland China government has strengthened its military deterrence against Taiwan in general. This has included frequent, provocative, large-scale military exercises and the normalization of flights by military aircraft and warships around Taiwan. Politically, the slowdown in progress has meant the Taiwan issue is also increasingly in the international spotlight, with China continuing to “mine” Taiwan’s diplomatic relations and preventing Taiwan from exercising any form of power in international organizations.

In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, altering the calculus for any possible resolution of the Taiwan issue by force. Russia’s poor battlefield performance has diminished the Chinese leadership’s confidence in recovering Taiwan by force. In August of the same year, Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan to further deter Mainland China from acting rashly and elevating the deterrence policy. But it her visit was considered to be provocative.

Under Xi Jinping Mainland China’s overall policy toward Taiwan remains under a policy of deterrence. The major difference between deterrence and coercion is deterrence has as its core objective “discouraging independence”, that is, acquiescing to the status quo across the Taiwan Strait, acquiescing to the fact of Taiwan’s existing political independence, and acquiescing to the notion of “one China” in the international arena, in order to minimize the cost of actual reunification. The core of the policy of coercion, on the other hand, is to “promote unification” and to promote cross-Strait unification regardless of the cost, which means that once it enters the stage of normalized coercion, war in the Taiwan Strait will be inevitable. However, such a situation has not arisen since 1949.

During Xi Jinping’s tenure, China has become more nationalistic and populist, while the Chinese people’s overall support for the Communist Party of China (CPC) government is high because of the country’s sustained rapid economic growth through 2022. According to a study by Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the Chinese people’s support for the Communist Party of China (CPC) government during Xi’s presidency has almost reached the historical peak of the modern People’s Republic of China.

But as Xi Jinping enters his third term challenges to the status quo are evident. The uncertain future of Mainland China’s economy is a cause concern for the governing power and restraint of the CPC; the election of Lai Ching-Te to the presidency of Taiwan, where the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a more pronounced tendency to be independent; the gradual convergence of Western policies toward China after the Russo-Ukrainian War; the unstable geopolitical situation in Southeast Asia, with the drastic change in the political arena in Vietnam, the new government of the Philippines turning fully toward the U.S., the new and unpredictable president in Indonesia. All of these represent a series of problems which have prompted Xi Jinping’s government to make tough decisions, but the international situation and the deterioration of China’s international image in the past five years raises the challenge to the maintenance of peace.

II. History and Analysis of Taiwan’s Policy toward Mainland China

1. History and Analysis

Taiwan’s policy towards Mainland China has roughly gone through a three-step phase from unification to independence to pragmatic maintenance of the status quo. Until October 1971, in Chiang’s family-controlled Taiwan’s politics, the one-party dictatorship of the Kuomintang (KMT) still retained the dream of retaking the Mainland, and for a long period of time Taiwan became the legitimate government representing all of China. And since most of the politicians in Taiwan’s politics at the time were expatriates (Mainland Chinese who evacuated to Taiwan with the Kuomintang (KMT), they still retained a desire to regain the mainland. So although the Kuomintang (KMT) government ruled only Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu for a long time, it still retained the basic position of unification. However, this unification is different from the basic concept of unification in today’s Taiwan politics, a unification in opposition to the Chinese communist government, a unification with the Republic of China as the main body after unification. Although the Kuomintang (KMT) still proclaims this today, everyone knows a compromise will be necessary.

In 1984, Lee Teng-hui was elected vice president and was seen as the successor to Chiang Ching-kuo, who was well aware of the hopelessness of the counter-offensive at the end of the Chiang dynasty. He went on to become Taiwan’s president in 1988 and led the country’s democratization and vindication of much of the government repression during the Kuomintang (KMT) dictatorship. Although Lee did not show a great tendency towards independence in the early years of his administration, he insisted on the idea of the unification of China by the Republic of China (ROC) on the one hand, and on pragmatic diplomacy to strengthen Taiwan’s non-Chinese presence on international occasions on the other, while also adopting the policy of “giving the Communist Party of China (CPC) a sweet date in return for a punch in the face” by criticizing China’s form of government, and on the other hand, negotiating with the Communist Party of China (CPC). However, after the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, Li Teng-hui’s political stance expression gradually formed into a more unique separate Taiwan consciousness.

As the Kuomintang (KMT)’s political rival, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) began his term in office by adopting a policy of independence against Lee’s government. The first was the “four no’s and one no’s,” which included not declaring Taiwan independent, not changing the country’s name, not promoting “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan,” and not pushing for constitutional amendments to change the status quo, as well as not repealing the National Unification Program. This commitment eased Mainland China’s suspicions to some extent. He even considered accepting the 1992 Consensus in 2001 to improve cross-strait relations. However, the then head of the Executive Yuan’s Mainland Affairs Council, and later President Tsai Ing-wen, blocked this approach and persuaded Chen Shui-bian to continue the previous administration’s “special country- to-country relationship”, which was further amended to the “one country on one side” doctrine in 2002. Subsequently, the Chen Shui-bian administration shifted their view towards independence, pushing for “TAIWAN” to be added to the cover of passports in 2003, and putting forward the idea of “four musts and one must not be” in 2007, i.e., “Taiwan wants independence.” In 2007, he put forward the idea of “four things and one thing”, namely, “Taiwan wants independence, Taiwan wants a proper name, Taiwan wants a new constitution, and Taiwan wants development”. This was also the moment when the idea of independence was at its peak politically in Taiwan.

In 2008 with increasingly polarized policies, Taiwan completed its second peaceful party rotation, with the Kuomintang (KMT) coming to power, a sign of Taiwan’s political democratization. The core of President Ma Ying-jeou’s cross-strait policy is the “three no’s” – no unification, no independence, and no military force. Another way of describing the “Three No’s” policy is the “Muddling Through” strategy, which is the new core strategy of the Kuomintang (KMT) in the post-“counter-attack on the Mainland” era. The Kuomintang (KMT) recognized there is no hope for a counter- offensive on the Mainland, and also the “one country, two systems” proposed by the Communist Party of China (CPC) is not a political proposal acceptable to it or to all political groups except The Chinese Unification Promotion Party; it accepted “Muddling Through” as a solution, and even in some cases diplomatically stated that it “does not reject unification” and clearly opposed the idea of “legalistic Taiwan independence”. “Juridical Taiwan independence” and changing the name of the country to the Republic of Taiwan. And this is a more realistic strategy, seeking a balance between the United States and China, on the one hand, and the dual pressure of the United States and Mainland China, on the other, Taiwan’s international space is limited. Through “flexible diplomacy” and “peace initiatives”, he has sought to ease cross-strait tensions, reduce tension in the Asia-Pacific region, and at the same time please both China and the United States to maintain international support for Taiwan. However, at the same time, Taiwan has become more economically dependent on China, which has also damaged Taiwan’s ability to defend itself.

In 2013, Kuo Cheng-liang, then vice chairman of the pro-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) media outlet Formosa E-paper, remarked that since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s defeat in the 2012 presidential election, the party had not thoroughly reflected on the cross-strait challenges it faced and had never addressed the question of “why the U.S. is uneasy with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in power.” He noted that “to this day, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s cross- strait narrative has not moved beyond the 1999 Resolution on Taiwan’s Future and the 2012 Ten-Year Policy Guidelines. Since these two documents failed to demonstrate in 2012 that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could stabilize cross-strait relations and win the trust of both the U.S. and the Taiwanese people, it is even less likely that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) can rely solely on these documents to pass in 2016 as U.S.-China relations deepen.” Kuo further argued that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s refusal to accept the Constitution of the Republic of China and its ongoing entanglement with the idea of legal independence from China prevented the party from overcoming the “red lines” set by both the U.S. and China on cross-strait politics. As a result, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could not convince the Taiwanese public that it could maintain cross-strait interactions, nor could it assure the U.S. that it could stabilize the legal status quo.

Although Kuo’s prediction for the 2016 Taiwanese leadership election did not
come true, he insightfully pointed out the dilemma the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was facing—its position risked increasing tensions between the U.S. and China. In contrast, the Kuomintang (KMT)’s muddling through policy appeared much more moderate and acceptable to both the U.S. and China. However, in recent years, U.S. support for the Kuomintang (KMT) has gradually diminished. One reason is that U.S. media often aligns with pro-DPP media in Taiwan to portray the Kuomintang (KMT) as being supported by the Communist Party of China (CPC). Another reason is the actual shift in public opinion, as the number of people supporting independence has grown. This is part of a broader trend since the beginning of the 21st century, which has seen the rise of populism and extremism.

With Ma Ying-jeou’s approval ratings remaining low in the latter part of his term, coupled with the internal strife of the Kuomintang (KMT) in the 2016 election and the negative impact of Hong Xiu-chu’s “rush to unification” policy, Tsai Ing-wen ran for a second term as president in 2016 and was successfully elected. She maintained the status quo of peace across the Taiwan Strait despite being the leader of the more independence loving Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tsai pushed for the localization of Taiwan on the one hand, while seeing off the dual pressure from China and the United States on the other. She had the highest approval rating of any popularly and directly elected president in Taiwan when she left office. Unfortunately, the post-election position was disrupted by Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

In 2022, Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was rendered in three different views by the mainstream media in the U.S., China, and Taiwan. The Chinese media reported Pelosi’s visit as a provocation, a demonstration against the unification of the motherland, and the clearest evidence of U.S. support for the two-nation theory. The Taiwanese media reported it as reflecting Taiwan as a true ally of the United States. If Taiwan is in trouble, the U.S. will definitely support it, and the visit also reflects the U.S. determination to deter China from protecting Taiwan. U.S. observers, on the other hand, saw it as a warning from Pelosi on behalf of the U.S. to both sides of the Taiwan Straits, but more in favor of Taiwan. At a time when Russia is invading Ukraine, the U.S. may not be able to provide all the support it needs if there is another war in the Asia-Pacific region, so Pelosi was asking Taiwan to exercise restraint and not to provoke Mainland China.

The different reactions of the three parties is reflected in the complex history of China. The CPC, on the one hand, sees the behavior of the United States and Taiwan through propaganda tactics, and on the other hand, propagates that the United States wants war in the Asia-Pacific region to undermine China’s long-term economic development. China’s propaganda department wants to put the blame on the United States for going to war or not going to war, so that, for China, if there is a war, the responsibility will be all on the United States side. Taiwan, on the other hand, is as conflicted as China in its desire for U.S. support for the cause of Taiwan’s independence as it is in its desire for the U.S. threat to counterbalance Mainland China. The core concern of the US is whether China is as vulnerable as Russia, and although the world considers the Russian army to be very corrupt, the US knows that it is still the third largest army in the world, and that any other country other than the US and China will not be able to fight at the same level as the Russian army, and will only fight worse. Ukraine is still able to maintain a stalemate with Russia because of the money and weapons power of the entire West, but if Taiwan goes to war at the same time, it will not be a risk the US can take. That’s why the US is eager to ensure ‘muddling through’ continues.

Despite the desire of some Taiwanese citizens and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to pursue independence, no one is willing to pull the trigger—whether it be the U.S., China, or any political forces or citizens within Taiwan.

2. 2024 Election and Future

Taiwan’s election in 2024 was ultimately a full three party race. This is different from the previous situation of two strong parties and one weak party, in which all
three parties and candidates have established their own core voter base. In addition to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT), the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), a new political party established in 2019, has at its core former Taipei mayor and physician Ko Wen-je, who was later joined by former legislator and leader of Taiwan’s Sunflower Student Movement, Huang Kuo-cheong. The main supporters of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) are young people who are opposed to both the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT), who advocate Taiwan’s autonomy and cross-strait peace, and who are less inclined to independence than the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and more inclined to the status quo. Polls at the time of the election determined an almost certain victory for
the Kuomintang (KMT) over the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) if it cooperated with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). However, a final dispute between the two parties over the method of deciding on a presidential candidate resulted in both parties maintaining their decision to run independently in the end. The cross-strait relations policies of the three parties have basically not departed from the basic condition of maintaining the status quo: that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is more in favor of unification and the Kuomintang (KMT) is more in favor of maintaining peace.

The loss of the Kuomintang (KMT)’s cooperation with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and the fact that the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is still shallowly rooted led to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s successful reelection. The new president, Lai Ching-Te, is seen as one of the more radical Taiwanese independence activists in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and vice president Hsiao Mei-Chin has also served as Taiwan’s representative to the United States. However, the number of voters who do not support the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is about 60 percent, reflecting voters’ skepticism that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could lead Taiwan to war. Whether or not Lai declares Taiwan’s independence during his term of office will be an important indicator of whether or not the Mainland China confirms the escalation of its deterrence policy to coercion policy. However, suppose China does not pursue armed unification of Taiwan. In that case, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will have a long-term voting advantage unless the Kuomintang (KMT) populizes or combines with the People’s Party to make a leftward shift, but this would also mean that the Kuomintang (KMT) would have to blur further the “1992 Consensus” and the “one-China” principle. This also means that the Kuomintang (KMT) has to blur the “1992 Consensus further” and the “One China” principle and promote localization, not to reunify the Republic of China with China but to maintain the status quo forever as its core strategy. No matter how this will also affect Mainland China’s decision-making. The Kuomintang (KMT)’s current ambiguity in cross-strait relations is, to a certain extent, a preparation for armed unification. Lien Shengwen, vice chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) and son of Kuomintang (KMT) patriarch Lien Chan, is seen as the most pro-Beijing Kuomintang (KMT) official and, assuming armed reunification, may be an excellent candidate to be the chief executive of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Taiwan.

3. People’s Choice

Based on a study by Election Study Center, National Chengchi University. The distribution of Taiwan people’s political party preferences showed a strong correlation with the distribution of Taiwanese/Chinese identity and the stance on unification and independence.

Starting from the unification and independence stance, the proportion of Taiwanese people who maintain the status quo and favor independence has grown over the past 30 years. Among them, maintaining the status quo has grown from about 40% to nearly 60%. Those favoring independence grew from less than 10% to more than 20% over the same period. Overall, these two categories account for more than 80% of Taiwan’s population today. Those who favor reunification or reunification as soon as possible has dropped from just over 30% to less than 10%. At the same time, it is important to specifically point out that the proportion of people supporting the permanent maintenance of the status quo has risen from less than 10% to nearly 35%. This represents the most significant shift in Taiwanese perceptions regarding unification and independence.

The change in Taiwanese identity has been the most notable of all statistics presented. 30 years ago, the number of those self-identifying as Taiwanese was less than 20%, but in 2024, it is already more than 60%. At the same time, those who identified as both Chinese and Taiwanese dropped from around 50% to around 30%. It’s just the Chinese who have dropped from about 25% to negligible.

There is also a big change in party leanings, with neutral or independent identifying voters dropping from over 60% to around 30%, and the Kuomintang (KMT)’s approval rating fluctuating from around 35% down to a low of around 15% when Lee Teng-hui left office, to a high of close to 40% in Ma’s first term, and then a steady decline since then to around 20% today. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), on the other hand, has maintained an overall upward curve, from 3% to 30%. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has seen its support rate rise from less than 1% to more than 15% in the five years since the party’s founding creating a true three way party split with a about 30% of voters switching between the parties. .

When analyzed comparatively, a few trends are notable: it is evident that the downward trend in the number of individuals who are neutral or unresponsive in terms of political party preference aligns closely with the declining trend of those who identify as both Chinese and Taiwanese.

Conversely, the upward trend in support for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) corresponds closely with the increase in individuals who identify solely as Taiwanese and those who favor Taiwan’s independence. Correlation suggests this is connected to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s stance on Taiwanese independence. However, despite this, we consistently see note the proportion of those pushing for immediate independence or leaning towards it remains far lower than those who prefer to maintain the status quo (26.2% vs. 60.9%). The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ‘s core support likely comes from the 26.2%, while the remaining supporters are less stable.

It seems the rise in Taiwanese identity and the significant growth in support for permanently maintaining the status quo reflects the sentiment among Taiwan’s younger generation, particularly those who have grown up after the relatively stable cross-strait relations that followed the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis. This generation is not inclined to go to war but also does not want independence. A survey released by Taiwan’s Global Views Monthly in January 2022 showed that if war were to break out between Taiwan and Mainland China, 51.3% of the public would be unwilling to go to the battlefield themselves or send their family members, with only 40.3% willing to do so. Among those aged 20 to 29, the percentage unwilling to fight is the highest, reaching 70.2%.

After analyzing all the data, it is again possible to identify certain specific points in time and events that influenced the decisions of the Taiwanese people. For example, the Hong Kong Protests in 2019 gave a steep rise in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s support; these voters are Taiwan independence supporters who solely identify as Taiwanese and responded to the failure of the administration.

Overall, the degree of division within Taiwanese society is significant, but it is not as absolute as in the United States. Compared to social issues, the divisions in Taiwan are more focused on government performance, external factors, and the highly sensitive cross-strait relations. This has resulted in Taiwanese politics being more susceptible to external influences. The question then arises: if war were to come, would Taiwanese people be able to defend their land like the Ukrainians? Would the cost to China of reunifying by force not be worth it for the Taiwanese. At least from the data, this seems challenging.

III. Cost Benefit in the Long Run with Invasion

1. Economics Factor

Contemplating an invasion of Taiwan is difficult, but it is possible to model the costs and benefits of such an invasion and understand what might happen. Looking first at the economic situation, China has recently weakened economically. Before 2019, China’s rapid economic growth was considered a global miracle. The Communist Party of China (CPC) saw this as, and in fact it became, its primary source of legitimacy—the massive success of China’s system under CPC leadership. However, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, several economic and social governance issues have emerged. The traditional “three driving forces” of Chinese economic growth in China are now all in decline

First, due to China’s overcapacity and insufficient domestic consumption, exports became a key factor in maintaining economic growth in the 2000s. However, as major export destinations like the United States and the European Union applied political pressure and protectionist trade measures against China, exports ceased to be a significant driver of China’s economic growth. The decline in exports has led to difficulties for millions of Chinese blue-collar workers, and small factory owners have become some of the most economically vulnerable groups in Chinese society.

Second, a significant portion of economic growth, especially in real estate and infrastructure investment—once the backbone of the economy—was funded by massive loans from property developers and local government hidden debt financing (known as municipal investment bonds). While these actions previously generated vast wealth and development for China, they now must be paid back and because incomes have stalled paying these loans back is finically very difficult. Since 2021, with the debt defaults of landmark real estate companies like Evergrande, the era of real estate and infrastructure driving China’s economic growth has collapsed. Similarly, following the pandemic, foreign investment in China has decreased, with many investors withdrawing their funds from the country. Domestic investment institutions in China have also faced difficulties in raising funds, making it hard for startups to survive. Now, only companies aligned with China’s governmental development strategies, such as those in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, are likely to secure funding. The rapid decline in the number of newly established unicorn companies each year and the overall decrease in financing reflect that this second economic driver is no longer effective.

Third, with the impact of the first two factors and the general pessimism about future economic and political development, consumption levels in China have also been weak. While wealthy individuals continue to shop in high-end luxury stores, a majority of people believe saving their money in banks is the safest option. All three driving forces have stalled, and within five years, China’s economy has fallen from its steep upward trajectory and is now teetering.

2. Military Factor

Beyond the economic struggles, Taiwan indeed remains a challenging place for military action and here again, it seems difficult for China to succeed. First, the Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan from Mainland China by about 180 kilometers, has complicated maritime conditions, and the large number of commercial vessels make it difficult to create a fully controlled battlefield without advance notice, preventing the possibility of a surprise attack. Additionally, any amphibious landing in Taiwan must be conducted on its western coast, where landing points are very limited. The Taiwanese military can easily pre-position sea mines at ports and landing sites, significantly hindering the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) operations. Moreover, Taiwan’s rugged terrain would allow Taiwanese forces to replicate the guerrilla warfare tactics used by the Communist Party of China (CPC) during the Chinese Civil War and the Anti-Japanese War, potentially inflicting heavy casualties on the PLA.

At the same time, the potential involvement of third parties is also a crucial consideration. While the likelihood of direct intervention by the U.S. and Japan in a conflict is low, actions such as airlifting ammunition and weapons to Taiwan, maintaining a presence on the battlefield to help Taiwan monitor the movements of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and other similar support measures could result in accidental involvement in the war.

3. Sanctions

There can be no doubt about China’s ability to militarily defeat Taiwan. At the same time, I do not believe that the so-called “blockade strategy” would be effective. On the issue of sanctions, China’s strategy is to hold the West, particularly Europe, economically hostage, and this strategy has a far greater chance of success than Russia’s. However, from the perspective of how the West might respond, if we assume China is determined to recover Taiwan by force, the best way to mitigate the risks would be to continue a firm process of “decoupling” from China, spreading the inflationary impact over the coming years. Yet, this seems unrealistic. The U.S. is in an election year, and the Biden administration is eager to smooth its path to reelection, has focused on reducing inflation, which led to an increase in U.S. imports from China in the first half of this year. Thus, “decoupling” appears at odds with the current political realities. China, with its long-term one-party rule, does not face such pressures.

The effectiveness of potential American sanctions is worth considering. China’s annual trade volume with the EU and the U.S. exceeds $1.5 trillion. No matter how much countries push for “decoupling” from China, it’s impossible to eliminate such a large amount of trade within just a few years. Industrial relocation is a long process, not one that can be driven solely by political will. If the goal is to cut the volume of trade in half, and it is possible to reduce trade by 10% per year, it would take until 2031 to reach the goal, which is certainly later than the 2027 “deadline” many scholars predict as China’s potential last opportunity to take Taiwan by force. While I am not a supporter of this “last deadline,” if the downward trend in trade is already established, China might be more motivated to attack Taiwan. In other words, when China believes the value of recovering Taiwan outweighs the value of maintaining U.S.-China or China-EU relations, it will make the decision to take Taiwan by force, and vice versa.

Of course, the above perspective is influenced by other factors. First, I don’t believe that the West and China can reduce trade by 10% per year. Especially in the case of China-EU trade, China’s grand strategy is quite clear—maintain absolute alliances with countries like Russia, Iran, Syria, and North Korea; cultivate close relationships with valuable Belt and Road countries like Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and Indonesia; and adopt a strategy of friendliness toward Europe while responding firmly to specific actions (mainly countering certain European policies). Europe holds more leverage than China, and it is still under the influence of the United States, as evidenced by Ursula von der Leyen acting as a U.S. proxy, showing the U.S. continues to wield significant influence in Europe.

This suggests significant rifts could emerge among Western nations when it comes to sanctioning China. Some countries might opt for relatively symbolic actions, like freezing Chinese officials’ assets in their territories. On trade, recent developments show Germany and Spain putting pressure on the EU to reconsider imposing additional tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, illustrating the deeply divided views on China within the EU. In specific cases, national interests lead to differing opinions— for instance, Germany opposes tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to protect its luxury car sales in China, while France, with a weaker automobile industry, supports the tariffs.

In this way, the economic entanglement between the West and China differs greatly from that with Russia. The West’s economic ties with Russia were insufficient to prevent them from imposing significant sanctions on Russia in exchange for safeguarding their interests. Russia initially sought to leverage its oil and natural gas to hold Europe hostage. This strategy unsettled Europe at first, but as the U.S. and Middle Eastern countries increased their oil and gas supplies to Europe, the crisis was averted. However, the interdependence between China and Europe is different. The ties between Russia and Europe could be severed because substitutes were available. But there is currently no alternative to China’s industrial production capacity. If the price of toilet paper in Europe rises to €10 per roll, such sanctions would inevitably backfire.

In summary, if China and Taiwan go to war, the severity of American and European sanctions will depend on China’s performance on the battlefield and whether the West can firmly commit to decoupling from China over the next few years. Otherwise, the sanctions could backfire on themselves.

4. International Factors

Whether China can gain sufficient support or neutrality from the international community is a key factor in the war. China has consistently emphasized the Taiwan issue is a matter of its domestic affairs, distinguishing it from the Russia-Ukraine conflict or the Israel-Palestine issue. However, several Western countries have recently pushed for a reinterpretation of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758. The U.S. Congress passed a bill stating that “Resolution 2758 only addresses the issue of China’s representation, and does not involve Taiwan.” Similarly, an Australian parliamentary bill claims that UN Resolution 2758 “does not establish the People’s Republic of China’s sovereignty over Taiwan, nor does it determine Taiwan’s future status in the United Nations.”

If a resolution similar to the one condemning Russia’s “illegal annexation” in Ukraine were to be presented at the UN regarding Taiwan, how might the vote play out? First, China would likely receive more votes in favor than Russia or Israel, but the “In Favour” votes would still be an absolute minority. Some Southeast Asian, Central Asian, and African countries might vote in favor, along with perhaps Russia (even though China abstained on the vote regarding Russia’s actions). However, many countries would likely abstain, and the number of abstentions would be much higher than those seen in votes involving Russia and Israel. Ultimately, Western nations, along with Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand, would likely lead the opposition. To gauge whether China has sufficient international support, we would need to look at the combined total of “In Favour” and “Abstention” votes and see if this surpasses the “Against” votes. Given the expected large number of abstentions, such a resolution would likely pass, resulting in a formal condemnation of China and possibly even demands for China to withdraw from Taiwan.

However, since this type of resolution carries no legal weight, China would likely not be overly concerned. International bodies like the United Nations would probably adopt a neutral stance, refraining from taking a strong position. The most important factor in this situation is the attitude of Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Take Vietnam as an example—it could potentially vote “In Favour,” “Abstain,” or “Against.” If countries like Vietnam vote against China, it would indicate that they have lost confidence in China’s future and do not believe that China can outcompete the West in the long term. A vote of abstention would suggest these nations anticipate China facing greater international pressure, but it can still maintain a regional presence. A vote “In Favour” would demonstrate that Vietnam’s leadership believes China will eventually replace the U.S. as the dominant power. The stance of other Belt and Road Initiative countries would similarly reflect their optimism toward China, and by extension, their expectations for the outcome of a potential conflict.

Regardless of how the votes turn out, China’s international image would undoubtedly suffer. However, the actual impact on China’s global standing would be limited. These votes would serve more as a barometer for assessing how other nations perceive China’s future and its prospects in the global arena.

IV. Conclusion

The Taiwan Strait has maintained peace for nearly 80 years, but the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s desire to reunify Taiwan has never waned with time. Whether peaceful unification is possible and if this peace can continue beyond 80 years is a multi-dimensional issue, encompassing domestic, international, economic, livelihood, and public opinion factors. With the changing geopolitical landscape in recent years, the tension in the Taiwan Strait today is at an all-time high and continues to escalate. The future of Taiwan remains uncertain.

Data Collection Methodology

I. Data Sampling and Analysis

The research target population for each survey is the adult population 20 years or older in the Taiwan Area (i.e. excluding the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu). Sample for every landline phone survey is drawn from telephone books, with the most recent year’s set of China Telecom Residential Telephone Number Books serving as the population. Each sample is constructed from numbers listed in each county and city telephone book and is drawn proportionately from all residential phone numbers across the island. In order to ensure complete coverage, after systematic sampling produces a sample for each city and county, it is then supplemented as circumstances warrant based on the last one or two or three or four digits to include households with unlisted numbers. After phone contact is established, the interviewer follows the specified intra-household sampling procedure to identify the targeted member of the household, and begins the interview.

The mobile phone survey is based on the “Mobile Communication Network Business User Number Allocation Status” published by the National Communications Commission (NCC) (the allocation status of the first five digits of the mobile phone number), combined with randomly generated codes/numbers representing the last five digits of mobile phone numbers to create the phone sample.

In order to ensure that the sample structure is more representative of the population, key sample variables are used to weight the sample’s partial characteristics through an iterated (raking) process. These include weights for sex, age, education and geographic location calculated from the Taiwan-Fukien Demographic Fact Book, Republic of China, published by the Ministry of the Interior.

The chart of trends in core political attitudes among Taiwanese is based on data gathered through this center’s telephone survey polls. Survey data is merged annually to generate data points, except those released in June; they come from surveys conducted between January and June. After results are weighted, the figures for the three main variables are parsed out and added to the trend chart. Percentages are rounded to the nearest tenth, so the total of the percentages may not be 100%.5

II. Time of Coverage and Sample Sizes

The data presented in the current trend chart includes that from 1992 through the first half of 2024. The interview sample sizes for each year are detailed below:

Year Cases

1992 4120

1994 1209

1995 21402

1996 10666

1997 3910

1998 14063

1999 9273

2000 11062

2001 10679

2002 10003

2003 14247

2004 34854

2005 7939

2006 13193

2007 13910

2008 16280

2009 20244

2010 13163

2011 23779

2012 18011

2013 13359

2014 20009

2015 22509

2016 15099

2017 13455

2018 9490

2019 16276

2020 11490

2021 12026

2022 12173

2023 14933

2024 61516

III. Main Variables

1. Taiwan Independence versus Unification with the Mainland (TI-UM) The independence-unification (TI-UM) position is constructed from the following survey item: “Thinking about Taiwan-mainland relations, there are several differing opinions: 1. unification as soon as possible; 2. independence as soon as possible; 3. maintain the status quo and move toward unification in the future; 4. maintain the status quo and move toward independence in the future; 5. maintain the status quo and decide in the future between independence or unification; 6. maintain the status quo indefinitely. Which do you prefer?” In addition to these six attitudes, the trend chart also includes non-responses for a total of seven categories.

2. Political Party Identification (PID)

The political party identification variable was constructed through the following steps. The respondent is first asked the following: “Among all political parties in our country, which party do you think of yourself as leaning toward?” If the respondent does not answer unequivocally, then s/he is asked “Relatively speaking, do you lean toward any political party?”. If the respondent then names a party, that answer is taken to be his/her party ID; and if the respondent still does not indicate a preference, the answer is counted as a non-response and others.

3. Taiwanese Identity

The following survey item was used in all instances to construct the measure of Taiwanese identity: “In our society, there are some people who call themselves ‘Taiwanese’, some who call themselves ‘Chinese’, and some who call themselves both. Do you consider yourself to be ‘Taiwanese’, ‘Chinese’, or both?”. Responses are scored into one of fourcategories: Taiwanese, Chinese, both, or no response.

Statement of Copyright

The contents displayed on this website, including but not limited to text, figures, formatting, audio and visual recordings, and other information, are without exception protected by copyright. Under copyright law, materials on this website can be downloaded for private use, under the condition that the user includes the following acknowledgement: “Source: Core Political Attitudes Trend Chart, Election Study Center, National Cheng Chi University.” This webpage may not be reproduced in part or in full without permission of Election Study Center. Without express approval, this website or any part of its contents may not be reproduced, broadcast, presented, performed, transmitted, modified, disseminated or used in any other activity covered under the standards of current copyright law. Actions taken in proper accordance with copyright law are not subject to this restriction.

Works Cited

Chao, Linda, and Ramon H. Myers. The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan. John Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Copper, John F. Taiwan: Nation-State or Province? 5th ed., Westview Press, 2008. Dittmer, Lowell, ed. Taiwan and China: Fitful Embrace. University of California Press, 2017.

Hickey, Dennis V. Foreign Policy Making in Taiwan: From Principle to Pragmatism. Routledge, 2006.

Shambaugh, David. China and the World. Oxford University Press, 2020.

Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf. Dangerous Strait: The U.S.-Taiwan-China Crisis. Columbia University Press, 2005.

Nathan, Andrew J., and Andrew Scobell. China’s Search for Security. Columbia University Press, 2012.

“Taiwan Relations Act.” Public Law 96-8, 96th Congress of the United States of America, 1979. U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.govinfo.gov.

United States Department of Defense. Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2022. Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2022, www.defense.gov.

Chen, Dean P. U.S.-China Rivalry and Taiwan’s Mainland Policy: Security, Nationalism, and the 1992 Consensus. Springer, 2017.

United Nations. Resolution 2758: Restoration of the Lawful Rights of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations. General Assembly, 1971. United Nations Digital Library, digitallibrary.un.org.

About the author

Bill Wu

Bill Wu is a high school student in the U.S. with a keen interest in political science, focusing on American and Chinese politics. He is active in leadership roles, including as Secretary-General of his school’s Model UN, and is the founder of an AI education startup named XStudy AI. His work aims to bridge cultural gaps and contribute to global political discourse.

The post Why has there been no war in the Taiwan Strait? A Review of Chinese-Taiwan Relations 1948-Present appeared first on Exploratio Journal.

Introduction

For decades, Latin American political constituents have debated the most effective economic model to follow to ensure sustained economic growth whilst also reducing poverty and inequality. Argentina has experienced alternating cycles of socialism, clientelist economic models promoted by Juan Perón from 1955 until 1973 and then the Kirchner’s from 2003 until 2023, interlaced with brief periods of free-market economic policies supported by institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the economic consensus promoted by prominent faculty members at the University of Chicago. The neo-liberal agenda was pursued sporadically by the dictatorship under Juan Videla followed by the administrations of Carlos Menem and Mauricio Macri.  All three attempts struggled to adhere to the free-market principles prescribed by the Chicago School and have subsequently failed to deliver improved standards of living across society. President Javier Milei, who was elected to office in 2023 on the promise of vastly reforming Argentina’s economy and political structure represents possibly the first time that a Latin American country adopts a neo-liberal economic agenda in its purest form outside the context of a military dictatorship. Milei’s presidency is truly an experiment to see if unfettered free-market policies are able to deliver positive outcomes and whether democratically elected political institutions are strong enough to withstand the societal pressures caused by severe economic hardship until reforms can bear fruit. 

Compared to other libertarian-leaning leaders, Milei stands apart due to the distinctive and radical nature of his neo-liberal approach to public policy. The closest comparison we can draw is with General Augusto Pinochet, who was at the front of Chile’s dictatorship from 1973 to 1990. Both leaders draw from the same libertarian economic philosophy as described by the Chicago School, which advocated for minimal public spending, lower taxes, flexible labor markets, deregulation, strategic privatization, free trade, and floating exchange rates, among others. More importantly, both regimes embraced a radical approach to reforms with the same degree of intensity (Centenera 2024). The key difference between these two experiments is that Chile’s military dictatorship imposed its agenda by curtailing individual liberties, while Milei’s presidency operates in an open democracy. Brazil under Jair Bolsenaro also implemented free-market policies but unlike Milei, his ideological focus was centered on social and cultural issues rather than economic ones. 

This research paper will focus on the extent to which Javier Milei has been able to successfully advance his neo-liberal reforms through Argentina’s political system, specifically the factors assisting and impeding his agenda. For context, it is important to look at examples historically of other attempts to implement a free-market model in Latin America generally and in Argentina specifically to ultimately gauge whether Milei’s economic vision has the potential to take root where past attempts have failed.

Literature Review

Latin America’s Early Liberalism 

In the 19th century, liberal elites, upper-class influential individuals, introduced Latin America to constitutionalism and modern representative governments. Latin American political systems evolved as elected presidents with broad powers replaced monarchs (Negretto and Aguilar-Rivera 2000). However, the road to successful constitutional democracies was a lengthy one as most liberal regimes in the region were unable to achieve co-existence with opposition parties and the necessary expansion of political representation (Negretto and Aguilar-Rivera 2000). The conventional view of the failure of liberal democracies in 19th century Latin America was that elected elites were unable to break with the mentality and the practices inherited from the authoritarianism of the colonial period and that institutions were unable to generate political consensus. Other scholars argue that frail democracies are the product of territorial fragmentation and factional conflict that led to the creation of a centralized government and tight control by the ruling elites. (Negretto and Aguilar-Rivera 2000). Because liberal elites manipulated elections through clientelism or fraud most liberal regimes in the 19th century evolved as oligarchic regimes with extreme inequality between the ruled and the rulers in terms of wealth, social position, and even race (Negretto and Aguilar-Rivera 2000). 

In the subsequent period, notably around the 1840’s, Latin American nations adopted foreign constitutional models to fit their local needs by adopting doctrines of federalism, or the division of powers (Negretto and Aguilar-Rivera 2000). In Argentina, specifically, the enactment of the constitution of 1853 was at the center of several political disputes. One of which was between Buenos Aires, which opposed the federal form of government, and the rest of the provinces, which believed it was the only viable means of organizing the national state (Negretto and Aguilar-Rivera 2000). Only in 1853, after the military defeat of Buenos Aires by the governor of Entre Rios, were the provincial governors able to enact a federal constitution. The Constitution was somewhat successful as it created formal institutions that helped solve the problem of national integration and consolidation of state authority. It also created a system of agreements among the elites regarding the division of power which helped gradually create more stability (Negretto and Aguilar-Rivera 2000). Despite these advances, the elites maintained control over the electoral process, which is why Argentina became an illiberal democracy at best (Zakaria 1997).  Not only was the electoral process tightly controlled, but statist and clientelist economic models were important levers to retain political power.

The Evolution of The Union Civica Radical and Peronism in Argentina

As constitutionalism across Latin America continued to unfold, it wasn’t until 1890, amid an economic crisis, that an organized opposition against the oligarchic regime in Argentina emerged in response to the political illegitimacy of the status quo. This overthrow gave rise to The Union Civica Radical, which became a dominant political force advocating for democratic reforms and broader electoral participation (Negretto and Aguilar-Rivera 2000). This political activism paved the way for a new electoral law that was enacted in 1912 during the presidency of Roque Sáenz Peña. The law established secret, and mandatory male suffrage along with a system of distributing seats in Congress that provided two-thirds of the total seats to the majority party and one-third of the total seats to the second most-voted party (Spruk 2019). After the law was passed, Argentina saw a significant increase in voter registration and voter turnout (Sabato 2001). It wasn’t until 1916 that the leader of the Union Civica Radical, Hipólto Yrigoyen, won the first presidency under The Sáenz Peña Law, which truly marked the end of an oligarchic regime and the beginning of a more inclusive and representative democracy (Spruk 2019). Ideas such as separation of powers, rule of law, and respect for individual rights fostered the political legitimacy that gradually replaced the authoritarian and colonial model (Negretto and Aguilar-Rivera 2000). 

However, these advances were short-lived, when in 1930, a military coup ousted President Yrigoyen which marked the beginning of the Infamous Decade which was characterized by electoral fraud, state interventions, and economic instability all of which were exacerbated by the Great Depression (Spruk 2019). In response, General Juan Perón was elected to power in 1946. Many scholars would argue that Péronism was the birth of populism, where political leaders promised immediate improvements in living standards in exchange for political support, even if the long-term effects were understood to be sub-optimal. This approach was disguised as an alternative to both capitalism and socialism. As a result, the Peronist movement became extremely influential, mostly attracting support from the working class, military sectors, and the Catholic Church (Spruk 2019). The movement was centered around what Juan Perón referred to as “justicialismo”, which emphasized social justice as a prime mover of national unity (Ciria 1974). 

In the economic field of his presidency, the state played a dominant role in order to quickly deliver benefits to constituents. Perón supported light and intermediary industries while large enterprises that could exercise political power were nationalized. The economy became inward-looking due to import-substitution industrialization policies, including raising tariffs and taxing exports (Huddle 1997). Perón also reduced foreign dependency and increased the production of goods domestically by providing local industries with subsidies and intervening to manage said industries (Huddle 1997). As a result of these economic policies, trade deteriorated making the import of capital goods, industrial raw materials, and fuel more expensive (Ciria 1974). This led to foreign reserves dropping and large public deficits prompting the government to increase paper currency printing and borrowing funds. As the monetary base increased, so did inflation (Huddle 1997).   

Peron faced the economic crisis with increasingly authoritarian and oppressive measures, which contributed to his downfall. By 1955, during Juan Perón’s second term as president, opposition had already begun to take shape, with discontent arising among sectors within the military, the middle classes, and the students (Ciria 1974). This growing dissatisfaction culminated in Perón’s ousting by a military coup later that year. Although Perón returned to power in 1973, the economic model he represented was again unable to deliver economic prosperity or stability.  Following Juan Perón’s death during his third term as president, his wife, Isabel Peron took over as president. Her presidency was short-lived as she was overthrown in 1976 by General Jorge Videla, who was committed to undoing Peron’s legacy. Although Peronism has undergone significant changes over the past few decades, it has maintained its position of being one of the largest political parties in Argentina, along with Union Civica Radical. 

Argentina’s Dictatorship: Introduction to Neoliberal-leaning Economic Policies 

The period under Jorge Videla, referred to as the ‘Dirty War,’ was characterized by widespread human rights abuses and the abduction of citizens by authorities with an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 people killed during this time (Hayner). Due to inflation that accelerated under Juan Perón’s last term, Videla was faced with a collapsing economy marked by soaring inflation. In response, Videla largely left economic policies in the hands of Minister Alfredo Martinez de Hoz, who attempted to restore economic growth by reversing Peronism in favor of a free market economy (Hayner). Whilst Videla may have embraced a few neo-liberal economic principles, such as liberalizing trade, he also borrowed heavily from foreign banks in order to fund rising public deficits due to a failure to curb public spending, a pronounced departure from the Chicago School recipe.  

Following the dictatorship and until the 2000s, Argentina experienced a gradual shift to neoliberalism as a response to the pressing debt crisis and its dependency on foreign borrowing.  This transition in Argentina mainly played out under Alfonsin’s and Menem’s presidencies.  Other Latin American countries began to embrace neo-liberal policies in response to the debt crisis that reached its peak in the 80’s (Huddle 1997). Countries started deregulating, privatizing, and opening themselves up to trade competition. Between 1985 and 1992 more than 2,000 publicly owned firms including airlines, public utilities, banks, and insurance companies, were privatized throughout the region (Huddle 1997). However, as neo-liberal policies grew in frequency and intensity, poverty and inequality grew across the region: 80% of new jobs after 1990 were created in the informal sector of the self-employed (Huddle 1997). 

The challenge faced by most countries is that it takes time for neo-liberal reforms to generate sustained growth, low and stable inflation, and permanent increases in wages. Sebastian Edwards, the World Bank Chief Economist for Latin America, stresses that free-market reforms produce greater macroeconomic stability and open up new avenues for development and growth. Nonetheless, Edwards acknowledges that the transition can be difficult and painful and may require short-term alleviation of dislocation in order to ease the impact. On the other hand, Duncan Green, author of Silent Revolution, argued that neo-liberal reforms in Latin America were excessively costly, as countries were forced into longer recessions than necessary in order to generate the trade surpluses required to meet debt and interest payments (Huddle 1997). Additionally, he argues that the bad far outweighs the good as restrictions in public sector programs hurt the poor and worsened income distribution across Latin American countries. These discrepancies between Edwards and Green reflect a much larger debate in society on whether the short-term losses and damages inflicted by neo-liberal policies are justified by the long-term benefits in the economy. This is the debate raging in Argentina today.

Backlash and shift to the left 

In the 2000s, this neo-liberal movement faced backlash regionally but more so in Argentina, where a balance of payments crisis resulted in the collapse of the currency peg in January 2002, which had supported the value of the peso since 1991 as part of an effort to combat hyperinflation and stabilize the economy (Spiegel). As a result, Argentine household savings were decimated with depositors unable to withdraw their savings as the Central Bank struggled to contain further capital flight. This economic crisis led to political chaos and eventually to a resurgence of a brand of Peronism characterized by extreme government intervention in all aspects of the economy. Initially championed by Néstor Kirchner, his wife and successor, Cristina Kirchner, took interventionist policies to new levels during her term.

After several years of falling living standards capped by a public corruption scandal engulfing Cristina Kirchner´s administration, Mauricio Macri, the former mayor of Buenos Aires, was elected president and served between 2015 to 2019. Macri, a liberal right-wing conservative, believed that the gradual implementation of economic reforms was needed in order to maintain support and avoid the most painful consequences of fiscal austerity. However, a gradualist approach was unable to deliver balanced budgets, which were critical to generating investor confidence and curtailing capital flight. Consequently, despite its initial success, political support for Macri’s reforms wavered once numerous economic risks began to materialize (Kovalski 2019).

Although Milei’s neo-liberal reforms may resemble those that Macri attempted to introduce, Macri barely got across the starting line, while Milei is already in a full sprint on the path to a pure neo-liberal economic model. 

Methodology

To assess whether Milei has successfully advanced his neo-liberal reforms through Argentina’s political system, I conducted primary research by interviewing key political figures and opinion leaders in Buenos Aires during the summer of 2024. These included heads of government secretariats, union leaders, NGO directors, and Argentine professors specializing in political science. In total,  I conducted eight interviews which allowed me to gain a diverse range of voices and perspectives. Before conducting the interviews, I researched in depth the interviewees and prepared around ten questions for each of them. For each of the interviews I also voice recorded the conversation and later translated the recording into English. These transcripts were useful in the terms of notetaking and synthesizing my research but also for cumulating quotes from the interviewees. This variety of perspectives has been largely shaped by the country’s long history of polarization which has formed the complex political landscape in present-day Argentina. These diverse perspectives help explain why many of Argentina’s institutions have supported and facilitated the implementation of Milei’s aggressive plan despite historical opposition to free-market policies, while others have clearly resisted a departure from Peronism. These diverse views mirror the debate between Edwards and Green on whether the short-term losses and pain inflicted by neo-liberal policies are justified by the long-term benefits in the economy. In this case, however, the stakes are particularly high, as the future of Argentina’s economy is on the line. The economic policies implemented in the coming years will determine whether Argentina’s economy will continue to decline or if it will begin its path to recovery. 

Who is Javier Milei?

A combination of the interchanging cycles of Peronism and neo-liberal leaning economic policies, Videla’s dictatorship, and the discrediting of Peronism as interpreted by the Kirshner’s all contributed to the poor and vulnerable conditions in which the 2023 general presidential elections took place. A decade of poor economic management resulted in inflation that was over 135%, a poverty rate above 40%, and a GDP growth of -2.5% (European Parliament). In this environment, against conventional wisdom, President Milei, also given the name El Loco– The Madman- won the 2023 elections. Milei, a trained economist with a degree in economics from the University of Belgrano has navigated diverse careers, from being the lead singer of a Rolling Stones cover band called Everest, to becoming a well-known economic pundit on Argentine TV (Phillips). And just five years ago, he embarked on his political journey, being elected as a national deputy in 2021 under his party, La Libertad Avanza. 

During Milei’s campaign, “he brandished a chainsaw at rallies to symbolize his plans to slash government spending, dressed up as a superhero who sang about fiscal policy and told voters that his five cloned English mastiffs, which he reportedly consults in telepathic conversations, are his ‘best strategists’” (Bergengruen and Werning). The self-described ‘anarcho-capitalist’ pledged that if he won office he would eliminate the nation’s central bank, dollarize the economy, and dismantle the corruption-riddled state controlled by parasitic career politicians  (Bergengruen and Werning)(Kozuel-Wright). Milei in an interview with the Times writer Vera Bergengruen said, “‘Argentina will become a model for how to transform a country into a prosperous nation… I have no doubt’” (Bergengruen and Werning). 

Milei won the second round of the general election with 55.69% of the votes, surprising many of his critics. According to analysts, Milei’s votes primarily came from the middle and lower classes, especially young people (European Parliament). Milei’s political rhetoric since his campaign has “aimed to address the simmering anger and frustration within a society worn down by persistent economic crises and instability” (Belgrano). This message strongly resonated with many vulnerable groups, who felt angered by the difficult circumstances created by the last four years under the administration of Alberto Fernandez, a Kirchner acolyte. Milei has addressed the public by using a populist-style discourse, particularly employing an anti-establishment message by blaming the “political caste,” referring to the elites, for Argentina’s economic, social, and political crisis (Buenos Aires Times). Through Milei’s populist rhetoric and limited political experience, he has portrayed himself as a leader who serves as a representative of the people. Milei has conveyed a message of empowerment and freedom to young people, sparking a profound cultural shift. He has inspired younger generations to embrace their potential and achieve prosperity. This message and cultural transformation have resonated strongly due to Argentina’s desperate situation. In a conversation with the Secretary of Small and Medium Businesses, Marcos Ayerra remarked, “we were so close to being like Venezuela.” Argentina has been so weakened by poverty, and people have reached their breaking point. Macri didn’t have the cultural and social determination that the people have now. Now, however, people have reached their threshold, and it has driven them to take the lead in shaping a new cultural direction, and Milei is at the face of this change.  

Sources of support and facilitation of reforms  

Milei’s Unique Approach and Early Economic Success 

Since Milei has been in power, he has implemented significant reductions in public spending, which has greatly contributed to overcoming a period of hyperinflation (Stuttaford).  Monthly inflation has come down from 26% in December 2023 to around 4% in June, where it has remained (Murillo). Additionally, in January, for the first time since 2012, Argentina registered a primary fiscal surplus (Centera 2024). Milei transformed a fiscal deficit of 2.7 percent of GDP into a surplus of 1.2 percent of GDP by freezing pensions and public salaries (Murillo). The Undersecretary of Innovation, Santiago Pordalenne, explains how the public has supported Milei so far as he has shown them “that there is light at the end of the tunnel.” Although Milei publicly shares how he is not a politician and how he will do everything politically incorrect, he tells the public he will do everything in his power to improve their lives, provide better job opportunities, and alleviate them from their misery. This message resonated strongly among the public and especially came through to the younger generations. Pordalenne explains how Milei is convinced that the transformation of Argentina must be abrupt and not gradual, unlike President Macri who considered that the change should be gradual.

Adaption and Reliance on Private Sector

The Secretaries of Entrepreneurship, Small and Medium Businesses, and Innovation have contributed to advancing Milei’s core policies and his neo-liberal vision. They have done this by working on  facilitating conditions and adapting and relying on the private sector to help stabilize key macroeconomic variables, which they believe will lead to microeconomic stability. This is relevant as it has been particularly challenging to create economic conditions that promote business creation and capital formation in Argentina. 

Ayerra, the Secretary of Small and Medium Businesses identifies Argentina’s three primary challenges as a) the macroeconomic problem, b) the labor issue, and c) the microeconomic problem. Ayerra explains that for decades, the Argentinian government practically gave everything away for free, funding subsidies, public services, and low-cost utilities by running sharp public sector deficits funded by printing money. This approach inevitably led to unrealistic expectations and a bloated fiscal budget.

Focus on Human Capital and Training

Milei’s government, in order to reduce public spending, has eliminated most subsidies for public services, the prices of which have spiked. He has also reduced government jobs by as much as 43%. With these job losses, the Secretariat has been working to facilitate the workers’ transition to the private sector. To do this, Pordalenne explains they have been training and forming the population, specifically the vulnerable classes.

Despite record-high unemployment, Argentina has various sectors with numerous job openings that remain unfilled due to challenges recruiting qualified employees. The Secretariat of Small and Medium Businesses has focused on training younger workers, because as Pablo Gutierrez, the Undersecretary of Entrepreneurship, explains, the broader Argentine public educational system from schools to secondary education, as well as post-graduate programs, does not prepare either entrepreneurs or future employees. Gutierrez explains that being an entrepreneur often involves trial and error, making mistakes along the process, and learning from them. He says that this resilience results in high-quality entrepreneurs because they are able to manage obstacles. However, there are a few risk-taking entrepreneurs in Argentina, a situation often attributed to years of socialist and protectionist governments that provided large segments of the population with guaranteed and protected jobs for life.

 Through this training, not only does the SBA hope that it will help transition workers to the private sector, but that it will also reduce informal employment. Ayerra states that “45% of employment is informal, and the SME, which make up 85% of the companies, account for 70% of informal employment.” Ayerra attributes the high informal employment to previous socialist-leaning Argentine governments, which imposed heavy tax and regulatory burdens pushing people to operate informally to avoid these costs. Informal employment comes with inadequate social protection and limits mobility. Additionally, being in the informal sector, makes it difficult for employees to access financial credit as they lack a formal credit history. Gutierrez explains how his Secretariat has been working on training programs, offering online certifications in financial education, and has been collaborating with bank associations to centralize all financial information for businesses interested in credit options, loans, and financing programs.  

Argentina in the Global Economy

Both the Secretariat of Innovation and the Secretariat of Entrepreneurship have also been working on repositioning Argentina in the global economy. Pordalenne states that the previous administration under Alberto Fernández was isolated from the global stage due to close ties with countries that included Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Russia. These relationships coupled with several sovereign debt defaults hindered Argentina’s ability to fully integrate into the global economy. 

However, Gutierrez explains that a shift towards a more open and competitive economy comes with challenges. Many firms, that have been accustomed to closed protectionist policies, are finding it difficult to compete globally. Many of them complain that they are unable to compete if their taxes aren’t reduced. For this reason, the government has been working on lowering inflation, taxes, and national consumption to address this concern. These tax reductions combined with lower inflation and a reduction in import tariffs will increase efficiency and productivity.

Milei’s government has also been focused on attracting more foreign investment and promoting the export of Argentine technologies and talent. However, it will take some time for multinational companies to start investing in Argentina as they need to see that changes are permanent, and only then will direct investment materialize. Argentina needs to rebuild trust and reinsert itself into the world as a ‘new’ Argentina, reliable, predictable, and with clear rules. 

Challenges and Opposition Facing Milei

Evolving Mindsets: Breaking Free from Socialist and Regulatory Constraints

The private sector’s role in emphasizing human capital and training, as well as repositioning Argentina in the economy, is a challenging undertaking. This is mainly due to the fact that, historically, Argentina has had governments that heavily regulated the economy, imposing rules that the private sector had to follow. This government aims to do the complete opposite, Pordalenne explains. They’ve been working on taking the pressure off the private sector and leaving it to do what it knows how to do, which is invest, generate employment, develop, and export. With its historical record, Argentina faces not only the challenge of addressing the lack of skills of employees but also struggles to change the mindset of the public that has been ingrained by past socialist, regulatory governments. Due to subsidies and free jobs being handed out, the Argentine people have been living a culture of not viewing work, employment, and hard work as a merit, as they’ve been historically oriented with the idea that putting effort and hard work is useless as the state can do everything for you.  

Gutierrez explains that Argentina’s history of having a lot of bureaucratic red tape was often an excuse for a process to be handled by intermediaries connected to corrupt networks who demand guarantees or bribes to approve a process. Despite these challenges, the government has attempted to free the public sector from the weight of the government and give more businesses more freedom and responsibility, by eliminating these processes that reduce corruption, inefficiency, and bureaucracy.  At the same time, Pordalenne states that the government is at the private sector’s disposal, listening to their needs and making the road they have to travel as simple and with as few obstacles as possible. They have been working on easing the process for businesses in the private sector and creating an environment where more opportunities are accessible. 

Labor Unions and Growing Inequality 

Milei has received significant opposition as his neo-liberal reforms support Duncan Green’s argument that such brutal policies exacerbate inequality and harm the middle class. Although there seems to have been progress these last couple of months, the General Secretary of the General Union of the city of Buenos Aires, Hector Daer, explains how in reality, this adjustment has been brutal, especially on the sectors that are bearing the brunt. Daer states, “there are sectors that can’t take it anymore.” Economist Juan Manuel Telechea, would agree with Daer, as he has said that this positive data has created “a false sense of success,” he also questions “‘how much more are we going to be able to cut social programs and pensions?’- and hide the fact that a great social crisis is brewing beneath the surface”(Centenera 2024).

 Milei’s first cut was shrinking the number of ministries from 19 to nine. He also ordered the freezing of almost all public works and devalued the peso by 54%. This adjustment has included a 64% reduction of the multi-billion dollar subsidies which is how the previous center-left government kept public transportation and various utilities- such as electricity, gas, and water at relatively low prices (Centenera 2024). Economist Juan Manuel Telechea says, “Milei is governing the free market and turning his back on society.” With a significant cut in public spending and causing a deep recession, this year among 46 million inhabitants there are almost 5 million who suffer from hunger. As a result, attendance at free community kitchens reached levels similar to that during Covid 19 (Centenera 2024).

As a result of this growing poverty and inequality, Milei has received significant opposition from leftist political parties, labor unions, and social organizations because of his brutal “shock therapy”. On December 20th, two weeks after Milei went into office, Milei issued an emergency decree to alter 366 laws with the aim of privatizing the country. The edict also, took away several worker’s rights, by reducing maternity leave pay and severance pay (Kozul-Wright). The decree immediately sparked protests among workers, following an appeal from the CGT. 

A few days later Milei sent a reformation bill, known as the Omnibus Law to Congress- after facing obstacles from both Labor Unions and Congress that impeded his ability to fully enforce his decree. This law called for significant deregulation approaches, the privatization of major state enterprises, and reform of the public education system, etc (Alexandra). In addition to these major spending cuts, the bill sought to undermine the fundamental principles of open democracy by proposing to scrap proportional representation in Congress. It also sought to transfer legislative power to the president in areas such as energy and fiscal policy until 2025 (Kozul- Wright). In opposition to what the public viewed as “power-grabbing measures,” just 45 days after Milei took office, Argentinian workers coordinated by The General Confederation of Labor (CGT) went on a general strike (Kozul- Wright). 

Despite Milei’s challenges in advancing his legislative agenda, with both his Omnibus law and Emergency Decree initially being rejected, he eventually succeeded in getting a significantly scaled-down version of the Omnibus laws passed. This revised version was approved by Congress on June 12th, 2024 and is in force today. 

Daer finds it particularly unjust that Milei’s administration has attacked labor rights purely to transfer wealth from workers to business sectors. When this happens he explains, “we band together, raise worker’s union consciousness, draw strength from the power workers give us and resist to prevent further encroachment on these rights.” Daer also criticizes how the state has just been sitting back, as it believes once the macroeconomy is in order the microeconomy will develop in itself, but hasn’t given the public any direction or support. Daer urges that the state needs to work on creating development conditions that generate social sustainability. 

Argentina’s Political System 

Since Milei has been in power, Argentina’s political system has also appeared to be an obstacle for Milei and his ability to implement his radical neo-liberal agenda. Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, which was created by him and his siblings back in 2021 to allow him to run for the presidency, only controls seven out of 72 senators, 38 deputies out of 257, and does not control a single provincial governorship or local mayor’s office (Bergengruen and Werning)(Binetti). Milei’s lack of representation in the government, coupled with the strong presence of Peronist representation in both chambers of Congress deputies, and senators, has proven to be extremely challenging for him to implement his radical structural reform, as any laws he proposes must be approved by Congress. 

This became clear when, following a strike by the General Confederation Labor and the rejection of key measures by Congress, Milei withdrew the Omnibus bill on February 6th.  Milei, however, told the Financial Times, that rather than seeing the bill “shredded,” he planned to wait until after midterm legislative elections in 2025 to try again with a comprehensive package (Nugent and Stott). In speaking with Manuel Solanet, the director of Public Policy at ‘Libertad y Progreso,’ an organization dedicated to public policy research and advocacy for economic freedom and market-oriented policies, he expressed his hope that in next year’s election, Libertad Avanza will secure a larger role in government while Peronism will lose influence. This shift, he believes, would facilitate more approval of legislation proposed by Milei. 

Milei, however, despite the hurdles he has encountered with Argentina’s political system, has pushed to find other ways to implement his radical neo-liberal agenda, including by issuing emergency decrees. Emergency decrees are enacted in response to emergency and exceptional circumstances, as the President bypasses Congress to pass the mandate. A couple of weeks later, and following the several protests that arose, during the CGT appeal, the court deemed Milei’s reform “unconstitutional,” and in March, Argentina’s senate voted to reject the decree. Manuel Solanet explains how emergency decrees have their limits, as although they are designed to allow presidents to respond quickly to emergencies, they also require congressional approval. 

Effects of Subsidy Removal 

Alejandro and Miguel, the executive director and the president of an Argentinian NGO, expand on this perspective. Their NGO, Vivienda Digna focuses on improving housing conditions for low-income families through programs like home improvement microloans, urban development projects, and social construction materials stores. However, upon speaking to them they shared how this reform adjustment has impacted them significantly. Miguel explains how before Milei’s administration the government was a source of finance for Vivienda Digna. Vivienda Digna still has an agreement they signed last year where they were assigned funding to build 50 homes as part of this project that they are just now starting, but the government has completely cut all contributions. 

In the past, Miguel explains, all the state projects related to assisting the people who needed it the most had not been working. The state was very incapable of solving this issue, they should have been because they had the capability of having a transformative impact but they weren’t. Therefore, with these difficulties, when the state finds an organization like Vivienda Digna, which can manage things in an orderly way and achieve good results, it’s also their interest to work with organizations like them to solve problems they don’t know how to address. However, with the inflation that Argentina was having and is still recovering from, the government has made it very clear to all organizations that there is no money left to contribute. 

Conclusion and looking forward 

Through evaluating sources of resistance towards Milei’s ‘shock therapy,’ it is evident that it has been extremely painful for not just the lower class, as it has deepened inequality and increased poverty, it has also been harmful- although to a smaller degree- to businesses that are attempting to be more competitive and accessible to others. However, despite this pain inflicted on all of the Argentine population most of the population is in consensus that these are the necessary measures needed to be taken to recover Argentina from its economic crisis. Pordalenne often uses the metaphor of a patient who- if he doesn’t do something is going to die. Therefore in order for him to survive he has to undergo surgery and rehabilitation. The rehabilitation is going to hurt, but Pordalenne explains that the necessary surgery is being done to revive Argentina. 

Through this research, I have found that Milei, so far, has managed to sustain popular support, even amid brutal economic adjustments and domestic recession, largely due to his success in reducing inflation and achieving a fiscal surplus (Stuttaford) (Murillo). However, social unrest is starting to fuel, as Milei has yet to address the growing inequality and poverty in the country. 

In order to sustain popular support and advance his transformative agenda, Milei will soon need to address the two primary barriers hindering the full implementation of his neo-liberal policies. These challenges include the rising social unrest driven by growing inequality and poverty, which is being manifested by large labor unions and organizations. Additionally, Milei’s lack of political support and representation in Congress and among provincial governors has become a significant obstacle, preventing Milei from passing many of his reform bills. 

Historically, in Argentina, once social rest reaches a certain point it has often led to governmental overthrows and cyclical periods of political dissatisfaction. Notably, during Macri’s presidency in 2015 and 2019, his attempt to reshape the economy through neo-liberal reforms fell short because of growing discontent from the public. This goes to show that the public won’t tolerate these conditions for too long, and so Milei’s government has to soon address the growing inequality and poverty in Argentina. This is increasingly important as, according to most polls, inflation has dramatically declined as the main problem identified by Argentines and has been replaced by fears of job loss and poverty (Murillo). This shift in public concerns signals that Milei’s policies have been a double-edged sword, as his reduction of social spending has caused high levels of social unrest- including two general strikes and one large protest (Murillo).

On another note, to expand his political influence, Milei could also benefit from forming political alliances with the Peronists and the political party Pro. A trend amongst the interviewees is that most of them agreed on the fact that Milei has to make more of an effort to collaborate with other political parties to gain broader support. The political party Pro, previously led by former president Macri, makes up a wide proportion of Milei’s voter base. Macri’s backing, along with support from Peronists, would be highly valuable for Milei, as Macri’s political coalition, Juntos por el Cambio, and Peronists hold a substantial number of seats in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. This would enable Milei to gain greater legislative influence (Centenera 2024). Although their backing may come at the cost of ‘watering’ down some of Milei’s radical proposals, in the longer run, this political support would ultimately reduce the need for extensive negotiations as Milei gains political support over time. 

Given the macroeconomic success Milei has achieved so far, his government appears to be focusing most of its resources on supporting those in the private sector and fostering business growth, which is argued is necessary to stabilize key macroeconomic variables. However, while continuing to manage Argentina’s macro economy, Milei could allocate some of these resources to alleviate the challenges faced by various sectors of Argentine society. By doing so, he could strengthen political backing from Peronsits and other center or left-leaning political groups, while also reducing the risk of losing some of his existing support. The conventional view of Milei is that he is a ‘crazy, madman.’ Pordalenne states, but “perhaps we needed a profile like that to make a change as the one that is being experienced, a change so strong to get Argentina out of its misery.”

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Negretto, Gabriel L., and José Antonio Aguilar-Rivera. “Rethinking the Legacy of the Liberal State in Latin America: The Cases of Argentina (1853-1916) and Mexico (1857-1910).” Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. Vol.32, no. No.2, 2000, p. 37. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/158569?searchText=argentina&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3
Fscope%3DeyJwYWdlTmFtZSI6ICJKb3VybmFsIG9mIExhdGluIEFtZXJpY2FuIFN0dWRpZXMiLCAicGFnZVVybCI6ICIvam91cm5hbC9qbGF0aWFtZXJzdHVkIiwgInR5cGUiOiAiam91cm5hbCIsICJqY29kZXMiO. Accessed 15 October 2024.

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Phillips, Tom. “Who is Javier Milei? Argentina’s new far-right president ‘El Loco’ takes the stage.” The Guardian, 20 November 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/20/who-is-javier-milei-argentina-new-president-far-right-what-does-he-stand-for. Accessed 16 October 2024.

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About the author

Olivia Knoell

Olivia is a senior at The American School of Madrid. She plans to study Political Science in college, with a particular focus on political economies in Latin America. In this research paper, she explores Argentina’s current political and economic transition and Javier Milei’s public policies in response to this shift. She conducted primary research in Argentina by interviewing key political figures and opinion leaders in Buenos Aires over the past summer. The interviews Olivia conducted included heads of government secretariats, union leaders, NGO directors, and Argentine professors who specialize in political science.

The post Javier Milei’s Neo-Liberal Vision: Sources of Support and Resistance in Argentina appeared first on Exploratio Journal.

“Growing up, I remember politicians hopping on TV to talk about how they would save the cities from the ‘menace’ of drug traffickers. It was the age of the ‘super predator’ and we were all supposed to be grateful for leaders who prioritized law and order. But I didn’t know any super predators.”

— Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes From The Women That A Movement Forgot

Before Nixon and Reagan’s war on drugs from the telly was Harry J. Anslinger’s announcement on the radio, telling Americans that they should “beware!” of marijuana, and telling parents that the youth are increasingly “…continuing addiction until they deteriorate mentally… and turn to violent crime and murder.” Anslinger was the “drug czar” of his time, and was appointed first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) in 1930 by President Herbert Hoover, which was the precursor of the DEA. His efforts to incite panic in the American population about the effects of drugs and to shut down medical experts made him the father of American drug policy.

His impact never left the country’s policies. On June 17th, 1971, Richard Nixon first introduced to the Washington Press Corps the urgent need for a war on drugs, making “this statement, which I think needs to be made to the Nation: America’s public enemy number one … is drug abuse. … It is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.” This was primarily supplemented by the creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Eleven years later, on October 14th, 1982, President Ronald Reagan, in an address to the nation from the Great Hall at the Department of Justice, declared there to be an “emergence of a new privileged class in America, a class ofrepeat offenders and career criminals … the result of misplaced government priorities and a misguided social philosophy. … This philosophy suggests in short that there is crime or wrongdoing, and that society, not the individual, is to blame.”

This declaration was backed by his eight-point-plan, which included unleashing 12 task forces to suppress organized involvement in drug abuse, “including the FBI, the DEA, the IRS, the ATF, Immigration and Naturalization Service, United States Marshals Services, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Coast Guard,” as well as the creation of a center for training local law enforcement in combating drug smuggling and other syndicated crime, and the allotment of millions of dollars to prisons and jails for their expansion.

The War on Drugs is the usage of greater punishment and legal enforcement against drug use in the United States. The greater rise of the War came in tandem with the rise of President Reagan’s Neoliberal policies (“Reaganomics”) that pushed off from New Deal Liberalism, which included tax cuts, diminishing market regulation, and allowing for free trade, as well as low social welfare spending. Such policies fall under one principal theme: minimal government accountability for the benefit of American communities. Instead of Reagan himself, the visibility of the War shifted to TV programs and sensationalistic news stories. The Reagan era (1981-1989) War on Drugs shattered communities using ‘attack’ policies and media propaganda to create a cultural frenzy of fear of drugs and drug users. What could have been an attack on addiction was instead a war on people; war, in any form, of course, does nothing but cast a long-lasting, haunting specter over a country.

Harry Anslinger’s Marijuana Fairytales

Harry Anslinger’s descriptions of Communist Chinese men luring white women into their ‘opium dens’ led to official raids on Chinese communities. Newspaper tales of the special potential violence of black Americans on cocaine— while Anslinger stressed that black Americans already made up ‘60 percent of the addicts’— had Southern police increasing the caliber of their guns. The violence enacted against people of color was not a side effect– the point of the aggression was about putting them in their place, lest they, to Anslinger’s imagination, got too excited on dope and cocaine and infiltrated or violated white society. George White, Anslinger’s favorite agent from the FBN, complained about Billie Holiday’s “fancy coats and fancy automobiles and her jewelry and her gown,” before seemingly planting a heroin kit and opium in her hotel room in San Francisco. Holiday got charged with possession, but upon interrogation from journalists about the unlikely location of the stash (a wastepaper basket), White could only stammer.

Anslinger did not come across such egregious falsehoods about narcotics and marijuana from unintentional ignorance. He did not believe marijuana to be a major issue until he began to envision Mexican Americans and African Americans, gorged on drugs, laying hands on naive white girls. He then inquired about the effects of marijuana to thirty scientific experts. All thirty wrote back. Only one called to ban it, which was the only confirmation he needed. He continued to proclaim to the public stories of marijuana turning normal citizens into crazed killers. Doctors came to him with evidence that, perhaps, marijuana made one sleepy at most, or that it was not an inherently evil substance in general, and in return, Anslinger refused to ever fund independent scientific research.

When Edward Huntington Williams, a doctor who was a leading expert on opioids, and an extremely highly regarded expert in medicine, opened a free clinic to prescribe drugs to addicts, he was only following tradition before the reign of Anslinger. Local pharmacists, at low prices, sold remedies with morphine and heroin as casually as those today might sell sugary cough syrups. Regular users would carry on working and raising their families, even among the ones who got hooked. Once the crackdown on narcotics administered by doctors began, he saw “tens of thousands of people, in every walk of life, frantically craving drugs that they could in no legal way secure… must have known that their Edict, if enforced, was the clear equivalent of an order to create an illicit drug industry.” But he would soon be destroyed by Anslinger’s second poison, if the first one was media weaponization, and the second was unleashing his zealous agents onto civilian territory. A decoy addict stumbled into his clinic, and Williams, having no reason to fear a consequence, wrote him a prescription of heroin to get him back to normal. He would become one of twenty thousand doctors busted by police, and his life work became obsolete. These ‘poisons’ would remain the main two weapons decades in the future.

This was the basis of the Drug War— Anslinger’s fear isolated every drug user from their supply, artificially creating a drug problem as people no longer had a way to get a safe supply. What were the long term implications? Just as the prohibition-era Mafia sold alcohol because of the market placed directly in their hands, drug peddlers and cartels now had something that people wanted badly.

Reagan’s Imagination and the American Culture Dish

Ronald Reagan, even during his time only as a Hollywood actor, expressed, in a 1957 speech at his alma mater, Eureka College, dismay over Americans, under New Deal regulated Liberalism, being crushed “into a mold of standardized mediocrity,” as there was a seemingly economic minimum and maximum a person could be a part of. In Reagan’s mind was the vague, glamorous and heroic age of capitalism, where “American pioneers” risked their own souls in the market and could either fall into poverty, or be launched into prosperity, based all on their hard work.

During his presidency, he pointedly avoided enacting policies which could have built off of 1960s-era domestic policies (such as Medicaid and Affirmative Action) by not addressing poor housing conditions, failing education systems, and unemployment. Instead, under the Reagan administration, half a million families were stricken from the welfare eligibility, one million people from food stamps, over two-and-a-half million children from school lunch programs; he introduced nine block grants in 1982, reducing the money the federal government could allot to the states and, in general, central government accountability — inflation increased, for the government turned a blind eye, and Americans got poorer.

Famously, in the years leading up to his presidency, before losing his presidential nomination to Gerald Ford, Reagan painted the picture of the morally corrupt Linda Taylor, who would come to use “eighty names, thirty addresses, fifteen telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four non-existent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare,” opening the floodgates to a barrage of media coverage on welfare and Medicaid cheats, as Reagan himself bemoaned the apparently fraud-ridden system. “Only our deep moral values and strong institutions can … restrain the darker impulses of human nature,” Reagan told the International Association of Chiefs of Police in 1981. In early January of 1967, in his Inaugural Address as Governor of California, he called welfare money an inhuman destruction of “self-reliance, dignity, and self-respect,” and the maker of continued poverty. He quoted Benjamin Disraeli, a mid-19th century Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, with “[m]an is not a creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.” This statement would be followed by his formerly noted lack of ‘circumstance’ shifting for poverty, only attacking the symptom of poverty, which is, of course, the welfare system.

The anti-welfare panic among Americans (84 percent of Illinois voters considered welfare a prominent concern in 1978) neatly set up the culture that would lead to another kind of moral outrage.

The Television and Cop Love Affair

Children in school in the U.S. would learn to become familiar with the state mandated, seemingly benign, and all important message to “Just Say No!” to drugs, with First Lady Nancy Reagan’s face at the forefront of it all in talk shows and television news programs. This was one key strategy of the Reagan administration’s crackdown: with the assertion blazing across TV programs (notably Diff’rent Strokes (1978) and Punky Brewster (1984)), covers of arcade games, and other widespread educational programs to say no to drug use, Americans were sure to get the message that the drug issue was the issue caused by the irresponsible and the demoralized; that is, because too few people were saying ‘no.’

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander notes that in August of 1986, Time magazine called crack the “issue of the year,” and the thousands of crack stories that featured black faces represented these crack users in various headlines and stories. With Linda Taylor already the face of the corrupt and lazy ‘welfare queen,’ the crack sensation only solidified placing black communities and people as the target of the war. Politicians from both parties were pushed to be ‘tough on crime’ in policy. It became the universal, unquestioned stance. Who would be against preventing American children from getting drugged up by the dregs of society?

The media and the police were becoming increasingly intertwined. Cracked Coverage by Jimmie Lynn Reeves brought forth the imagery of TV cameras doggedly following cops as they bust into houses for their drug raids. Geraldo Rivera, an American political commentator, had a 1986 program called “American Vice: The Doping of a Nation” which included clips of real police drug raids. A Time article commented that “antics of Rivera’s show highlighted concerns about the increasingly common practice of letting TV crews tag along on drug raids.” The citizen exploitation by broadcasting images of their wrongdoing and downfall was an important aspect to how the War invaded the American psyche. Rivera’s show echoed Miami Vice, a popular adventure cop show of the time, by name, attaching an embarrassment of drama to what should have been a dull crime. The program was controversial, but the sensationalism it indulged in was not new in the journalism world. In the 1991 study “Negotiating Control: A Study of News Sources” by Richard Ericson, Patricia Baranek, and Janet Chan, the extent to which the media became not just a puppet of the militarization of the War, but working right alongside the police was commented on:

The police have come to appreciate that the news media are part of the policing apparatus of society, and can be controlled and put to good use in this respect. The news media are incorporated into the architecture of new police buildings (they are given newsroom facilities there), they are taken into account in police organizational charts, they are subject to the regulations in police operation manuals, and they are part of everyday practice at all levels of the police hierarchy.

What made the Reagan era of the War unique was this, then; the transition from the image of a mere public crime crisis in certain (urban) areas to being a scandalous specter— white powder that could coat even the neighborhoods of suburban middle America. Had the issue remained the first, it would have been ignorable to many, a problem that merely plagued the unfortunate peoples in impoverished parts of the city.

It was not just crack stories hitting the news seemingly each day that defined the uniquely severe push of the Reagan Era’s War, but of course, Nancy’s Just Say No campaign that allowed her to transform into an American figure of benevolence. Drugs were a product of a kind of unnatural urban hell that could ‘infiltrate’ neighborhoods through malevolent or ignorant outsiders, and suburban American neighborhoods self-fortifying against this threat, creating self-contained communities which emphasized nuclear family values, became another key Reaganist idea. The “community mobilization” of these neighborhoods took the form of a “society of informers.” Christina J. Johns, in “Power, Ideology, and the War on Drugs: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure,” notes the “relish” in which society began turning in those within their communities: “In a poll conducted by the Washington Post/ABC News in 1989, 83 percent of the respondents favored encouraging people to phone the police to report drug users even if it meant turning in ‘a family member who uses drugs.’” This extended into schools. The Drug Awareness Resistance Education (DARE) program, as administered by the LAPD, and founded in 1984, planted uniformed police officers in classrooms to tell children to “Just say no,” and additionally to tell on their peers who might be saying ‘yes.’ ‘DARE Boxes’ were installed in some classrooms where the students could act on DARE’s Three R’s— “Recognize, Resist, and Report”— and put in the name of a suspected drug-using peer. This, alongside the police hotlines placed everywhere, boosted by local news organizations, created an environment of total fear and lack of trust. What were the effects on children from uniformed men knocking down doors on screen as national heroes dragging out the undesirables of society, and those same men coming to their schools to teach them that some of their own peers and even parents could be one of them if they were not careful enough?

Reaganist Policies

Before the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which codified criminal penalties for possession of a controlled substance, increased penalties for minors in a drug business, and the expansion of mandatory minimum penalties, there was the 1984 Comprehensive Crime control Act of 1984, which established those mandatory minimum sentences. That same year, the DEA launched Operation Pipeline, based on drug traffickers’ usage of U.S. highways to move their wares around. This is a federal program that mainly trains officers specifically to use pretextual and ‘consent’ searches on the road for mass seizure of drugs and arresting of those possessing drugs in their vehicles. Of course, those most really affected by the “war” were never large scale distributors or kingpins. Four out of five drug arrests were for mere possession, and the other fifth were for selling.

During Reagan’s second term, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was launched. It doubled the level of money already given to domestic crime and drug restraint initiatives during his first term, and tripled drug enforcement funds. While Reagan’s speech on it seemed to emphasize drug treatment and education, “the $900 million allocated by Congress for drug abuse programs … went mostly for the purchase of helicopters, airplanes, and intelligence-gathering facilities.”

It is true that some attention was given to schools, however, as the Drug Policy Board facilitated drug testing sites in workplaces and rescinded federal student loans if the student was convicted of a drug offense (which included simple drug use).

The aim of the game under Reagan’s rule was less government accountability, which was achieved by the false utopian racial ideal America had convinced itself of embodying: color-blindness. Reagan himself commemorated Martin Luther King Jr.’s judge-not-by-color-of-skin line, and then commemorated his upholding of the ideal, citing record amounts of black Americans holding jobs in 1984. Of course, claiming colorblindness in a society and individualizing the drug issue, as the Reagan Administration did, erased the need to address impoverished conditions that might lead to crime to increase the possibilities of literal survival, and also erased the need to examine possible racial profiling and otherwise unfairly motivated officers (such as by property and money seizures and federal funding that came from each drug user caught).

Conclusion

What was left in the United States was a culture of baseless individualization and the gross entanglement of the media and police organizations. The isolation of drug users and sensationalized cocaine and weed use continued and perpetuated a legacy from the 1930s, and was exacerbated by bringing cops into people’s homes and schools, creating a state of fear and discord within American communities: the War on Drugs being a war in this way doomed its goal of a better America from the start. What’s the alternative? Anyone today can see that the ideas fabricated during the 1930’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s are still often considered ‘common sense.’ People know about the big cartels, imagining waterfalls of pills pouring into the country, and into the hands of middle-market sellers. They know that they land in the hands of drug retailers haunting the shadows of the neighborhoods they know to drive quicker through. They shall advise children to ‘just say no,’ of course.

They are not wrong. But it is a shallow perspective, one that is still unchallenged in our higher offices, by politicians who know it is generally advisable to declare toughness on crime and ‘clean the streets.’ The philosophy— if one could call it that— from decades ago is as strong as ever. Those who wish to reject the common pessimism will talk about improving living conditions: wages, access to food, home life, even. While the quality of life is nearly without exception a major consideration to make when analyzing any shade of societal ‘bad behavior,’ it would be shrewder to remember how life was before any of this ever began: back in the early nineteenth century, when drug use was nowhere near as pathological, and therefore almost never life-ruining. Instead of rehabilitation centers running on the attitude of tough love at best, which remove any source of comfort in an effort to bring addicts back to reality, cities should consider opening drug clinics for those who cannot function in their life properly any longer, and let them receive doses as they wish, so they a) do not have to act destructively to themselves or people around them in order to obtain the drugs and b) can self regulate to low doses once more. People do not have to be alone and rejected from their communities, indeed, the thing most important for a human being to be a part of.

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About the author

Celine Guay

Celine is a senior at the San Francisco University High School. She has a deep passion for history and hopes to study political science in college to make the world a better place than when she found it – but besides that, she likes to read, act in shows, and hang out with her cat, Cheerio.

The post Snow Ghosts and Marijuana Fairytales: How Reagan’s Americans Embraced the War on Drugs appeared first on Exploratio Journal.

Abstract

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting social isolation measures precipitated the rapid ascendance of OnlyFans, an online subscription platform for sex workers. OnlyFans revolutionized the sex work industry by elevating anonymity and safety, as well as granting sex workers autonomy over pricing and content creation. To explore the potential for destigmatization within the post-feminism neoliberal discourse that emphasizes individualism and autonomy, this thesis analyzes several primary sources. The sources include interviews with sex workers conducted by reputable news outlets such as GQ, The Morning News, and Medium, as well as memoirs from sex workers’ rights organizations like Mohojustice which scrutinizes the levels of agency and stigma experienced by sex workers in the OnlyFans era. This paper reveals that increased freedom, anonymity, and safety are double-edged: they enhance sex workers’ sense of control and reduce physical assault risks, fostering solidarity through building community. On the other hand, they may cause unauthorized leaks of exclusive content and personal information. The post-feminism neoliberal discourse, which champions free choice and personal responsibility while overlooking structural injustices, fosters a “whorearchy” that privileges private, non-contact sex work, and exacerbates marginalization for those unable to transition to online platforms like OnlyFans.

Keywords:
OnlyFans, sex work, post-feminism, neoliberalism, discourse, stigma, agency

I. Introduction

The demographics of sex work are undergoing a significant revolution with the rise of OnlyFans, an online subscription platform for sex workers to produce and distribute pornographic content. Established in 2016, it gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The lockdown disproportionately impacted first-world women in low-wage jobs who lack job security compared to those in high-paying, white-collar jobs. Many of these women in retail and service sectors turned to OnlyFans for a livable income. Social distancing also created obstacles for in-person sex workers, such as strippers, escorts, and street workers. In fact, 71% of previous sex workers began doing more online work due to COVID-19, many likely using OnlyFans and other online platforms (Blunt et al., 2021). With the simultaneous increase of first-time and previous sex workers entering the digital realm, OnlyFans exceeded one million creators in 2020 (Jarvey, 2020).

OnlyFans revolutionizes sex work demographics by offering more “freedom” and less control to both content creators and consumers. Consumers can subscribe to a creator and chat with them directly, allowing control over received content. Furthermore, OnlyFans does not exert significant control over creators’ actions, except by requiring all sex workers to be consenting adults. Unlike traditional pornography, where most companies or agencies require a set and a pre-determined script, OnlyFans creators set their subscription prices and dictate their content. This autonomy and self-entrepreneurialism are valued in neoliberal discourse, a concept central to my analysis, which will be explained later.

To understand how the public perceptions of OnlyFans are formed, I draw on Foucaults’ view that everything about sex is “put into discourse” (Foucault, 1978). Discourse is a society’s system of knowledge constituting widely accepted ideas, such as the notion that public discussions of sexuality are inappropriate. Discourse is a product of higher social powers, such as political authority, and is woven into public policies. Contemporary society still imposes constraints on women’s sexuality due to neoliberal and postfeminist discourses, though many are unaware of the power of these discourses.

In post-feminism discourse, the feminine ideal—being young, slim, attractive, and sexually desirable to men—is achieved through self-surveillance, monitoring, and discipline, arising from individual choice and responsibility for “empowerment”. Post-feminism refers to ‘the simultaneous incorporation, revision, and depoliticization of many of the central goals of second- wave feminism’ (Stacey, 1987). It assumes feminism is outdated, as gender inequality and sexism are perceived as resolved. This notion paradoxically intertwines individualism, choice, and empowerment with restrictiveness.

Neoliberalism is a discourse primarily centered around the political and economic theory that shuns government intervention and values deinstitutionalization, free-market, privatization, and the withdrawal of any form of social safety net. It is different from post-feminism in its form but similar in its core. Built on the premise that all individuals are self-managing, autonomous, and enterprising, neoliberalism assumes that all individuals have free choice and should exercise them to ultimately be responsible for their conditions (Gill and Scharff, 2011). This results in overlooking structural inequalities, since megastructures of the society are deemed irrelevant. Thus, negative outcomes of gender and socioeconomic inequalities, like unwanted sex, are framed as personal failings, with the individual held fully responsible for her actions (Ringrose and Walkerdine, 2008). Ironically, although neoliberal discourse holds people accountable for engaging in unwanted sex, it is precisely the lack of a social security system that neoliberalism advocates that compels many women into sex work.

This paper explores the interconnections between these discourses because they are strongly related and intertwined. Both value individualism and autonomy while neglecting socio- economic context, and both discourses are strongly gendered, with women bearing the responsibility and unnecessary burden “to regulate every aspect of their conduct and to present all their actions as freely chosen” (Gill, 2008). These discourses remove the language that women need to attribute negative outcomes to systemic gender inequality and attribute these outcomes to a lack of self-surveillance and self-improvement.

This paper aims to provide a nuanced examination of online sex work platforms, considering both positive and negative aspects to foster a healthier, destigmatized environment for sex work. It draws on sex workers’ testimonies from interviews and blogs to dissect the stigma they face with the advent of digital platforms into three levels: interpersonal, institutionalized, and internal. As I would illustrate, the enhanced invisibility and anonymity of online sex work, particularly on OnlyFans, is a double-edged sword. While it reduces normative interpersonal stigma (e.g., from friends and family), it introduces new forms, such as doxxing (public revelation of private identity information) and capping (unauthorized distribution of exclusive content). Additionally, the constant need for discretion can lower self-esteem, increasing internal stigma. Furthermore, this study will examine the concept of agency, emphasized in post-feminism neoliberalism, within the context of OnlyFans. The study concludes that sex workers’ agency is enhanced by transforming past trauma into empowering, income-generating experiences, autonomously dictating their interactions with subscribers, and finding confidence through customer attraction without conforming to societal body ideals.

II. Literature Review

A. Sex Work to Feminists: From Dichotomy to Comprehensiveness

Prior to the establishment of OnlyFans in 2016, feminist scholars’ perceptions of the influence of sex work on sex workers were highly dichotomized. The oppression paradigm (Dworkin, 1982, 1997; MacKinnon, 1989), as suggested by sex-exclusionary radical feminists (SERFs), posits that any form of sex work is strongly correlated with substance use, violence, and depression, and hinders gender equality. SERFs equate sex work to sex trafficking, claiming it is mainly pursued by poor women seeking quick money. They believe the only solution to improve the conditions of these “survival sex workers” is to eliminate the sex work industry. In contrast, the sex-positive feminists’ empowerment paradigm (Ditmore & Thukral, 2012) views sex work as legitimate labor that should be free from stigma. It argues that sex work offers agency, and that sex workers are not necessarily coerced and should have the right to take pleasure in their work.

The opposing paradigms create a division of sex work being either a voluntary choice or a coercion of survival, rendering sex workers’ true voices of experiences unheard. This binary perception of sex work portrays a false, neoliberal, and dichotomous image of “disempowered low-end erotic laborers who are simply ‘surviving’, and empowered high-end erotic laborers who are seen as astute, capable businessfolk” (Suprihmbé, 2019). However, evidence shows that while many sex workers engage by choice and find empowerment, they still face sexual coercion and disrespect from customers due to stigma.

In response, Weitzer (2010) proposed the polymorphous paradigm, which includes exploitation, objectification, free will, empowerment, validation, and agency as parts of the sex work experience. After the advent of digital platforms, Jones (2016) applied this paradigm to webcamming, suggesting that the elevated safety of remote work reduces physical assault risks and enhances job satisfaction. Although the polymorphous paradigm adapts to online sex work, it remains incomplete, failing to account for new dangers like online harassment, capping, doxing, and job dismissal. Institutionalized stigma (e.g., policy targeting online sex work) and OnlyFan’s impact on traditional in-person sex workers are also neglected. This paper aims to bridge these research gaps.

B. Sex Work to Sex Workers: Stigma and Agency

As key concepts defined and redefined by scholars over decades, both stigma and agency are central to my examination of sex workers’ testimonies.

Stigma is defined as the “co-occurrence of labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination in a context in which power is exercised” (Hatzenbuehler et al., 2013). Though primarily conceptualized as interpersonal, stigma operates on several socio-ecological levels: interpersonal, institutionalized, and internal. Interpersonal stigma involves social and psychological reactions to those perceived as having undesirable attributes, like excluding a friend after learning they are a sex worker or denying someone a job interview based on their involvement in sex work. Institutionalized stigma refers to institutional and ideological validation of stigmatization, such as government policies limiting job opportunities for sex workers. Internal stigma occurs when individuals internalize external stigma, leading to shame, low self-esteem, and fear of discrimination.

Agency is one’s independent capability to act on one’s will, implying free choice and the psychological ability to follow one’s desires. Agency is strongly related to feminism because it empowers sex workers to define their sexuality and attractiveness, taking power from institutions, capitalists, and men.

III. Methodology

This thesis draws on primary sources, including sex workers’ blogs and interviews. The paper examines four blogs collected by Mohojustice, “a growing coalition of sex workers, queer and trans folks, and allies” (MO Ho Justice, 2022), and interviews published by ABC News, GQ, and Medium. The blogs and interviews feature testimonies from a total of 12 sex workers.

This paper derives its results by fitting the sex workers’ narratives from the listed blogs and interviews into the framework of stigma versus agency. It summarizes the feelings expressed in those testimonies into keywords used as subheadings.

IV. Results

A. Interpersonal Stigma: Misunderstanding and Vulnerability

Before subscription-based online sex work platforms like OnlyFans, interpersonal stigma manifested through the misunderstanding and humiliation sex workers experienced in daily interactions. Consequently, sex workers often withdrew from social interactions, limiting their social circles to the sex worker community. Porn star Lorelei Lee wrote in her blog, “Sometimes when people asked me what I did and I told them, the conversation simply ended. Their faces changed and they couldn’t meet my eyes anymore,” she wrote. “I heard that all the time. ‘We’ve all got bills to pay,’ or, ‘You’ve got to make rent somehow,’ or, my favorite, ‘Well, we’re all whores in one way or another.’ That one made me angriest” (Lee, n.d.). People always assumed that she dabbled in sex work because she struggled to make ends meet and sex work was the “quick and easy” way to pay her bills, and they presumed sex work as inherently exploitative, unpleasant, and pitiful work to do, which is not the truth according to Lee. Misconceptions and stigma from non-sex workers devoured possibilities for genuine interaction, understanding, and empathy. Despite many sex workers being activists, their efforts to portray sex work as empowering are overshadowed by society’s deep-seated prejudices. For Lorelei Lee and others, the solution was to limit their social circles to the sex worker community, where they felt secure and understood. However, this withdrawal exacerbates their lack of representation and reinforces societal stereotypes, creating a vicious cycle.

Although online sex workers often keep their activities secret, exposure can lead to significant interpersonal stigma, and job dismissal is one of them. Kirsten Vaughn, a mechanic who engages in sex work part-time, said on the week of Valentine’s Day she was told to see her boss. “‘You’re a distraction… The guys have seen your page,’” her boss said, firing Vaughn while declaring “Kirsten Vaughn was terminated for ‘Violation of Policy/Procedure’” (Yang et al., 2021). Vaughn’s engagement in sex work did not affect her performance, yet she was blamed for being a “bewitching” female who distracted her male co-workers. In the male-dominated field of mechanics, Vaughn was expected to be an object of desire but was discouraged from expressing her sexuality boldly. This reflects a misogynistic attitude that both lures and fears female sexuality, blaming women for men’s inability to control their desires. If the stigma towards sex workers cannot cease, no matter how “safe” the platform seemingly is, the fear and shame will never dissipate.

Beyond the fear of exposure, OnlyFans sex workers frequently receive malicious or disrespectful comments since they often sext with customers and cater to personalized needs. Kirsten Vaughn mentioned that she received countless comments like “‘You’re just a stupid whore,’ ‘I bet your parents are proud,’ and ‘You’re so gross’” (Yang et al., 2021). These comments both show that female sex workers are disrespected and that male sexual fantasies can be violent. Sarvani, a 23-year-old tattoo artist and sex worker once posted an eye-catching tweet where she captioned a photo of herself posing proudly in the doorway of a two-story suburban house “Say whatcha want about OnlyFans but I just moved into my dream house at 22” (Sauers, 2021). As a result, Sarvani endured weeks of vile harassment and death threats, as though Sarvani’s financial success challenges the male fantasy of women always being in control.

What is more alarming is that when this disrespect evolves into a manipulative obsession, sex workers may face doxxing and stalking. Sarvani said her personal information was sought out by toxic fans because her Twitter account is under her real name. Evelyn Harlow, a Canadian sex worker who previously worked in retail, mentioned that one man “who think[s] that we’re in a relationship or in love” tried to find her in person, and admitted that “that’s a little bit scary” (Sauers, 2021).

The online world, where data can easily be recorded and stored, even opens the door for capping, and platforms can profit from this. In the context of online sex work, “consent” no longer means permission to subject one’s body to another’s intimate and sexual touch; it means permission to broadcast or circulate online content. In the face of the nonconsensual spread of content, Belle Grace said she turns to her subscribers to report these accounts when possible and inform her when doing so. She also mentioned that “There are businesses that you can pay to track down unapproved content, but websites and apps using our media for money (without permission) is still one of the top frustrations of OnlyFans models” (Conway, 2022).

Sex workers face these daily frustrations, while post-feminism neoliberalism normalizes and integrates as inherent to sex work. This discourse promotes a free market with no intervention, implying that if customers exploit creators’ content without paying, it’s acceptable, and regulations are unnecessary. According to the post-feminism neoliberalism discourse, people will automatically take advantage of the loopholes created by the internet, and all that sex workers should do is adapt themselves to this. If they get distressed by these frustrations, they should either get automatically eliminated from the industry or take full responsibility for their frustration. Here, post-feminism neoliberalism and misogynistic views converge: critics blame victims and normalize exploitation. This places an undue burden on sex workers who face societal disrespect and stigma.

However, OnlyFans’ influence on the interpersonal stigma confronted by sex workers is not purely negative. Stoya, a full-time business owner and a part-time content creator, offers her perspectives to look at the flip side of the coin. “I open up my inbox most mornings and it’s, like, a conversation with a fan about The Land of Laughs because he asked for a topless picture of me reading and that was the book I was reading at the time and he’s also read it,” she says. “It makes me wish we could do group threads on OnlyFans” (Sauers, 2021). She mentions that coming across genuine, heart-warming interactions with her subscribers not only made her find purpose in her work but also created a sense of belonging, all of which helped foster support and a sense of community for her as a sex worker.

B. Institutionalized Stigma: Exclusion and Uncertainty

In the era of in-person sex work, institutionalized stigma mostly takes the form of the exclusion of sex workers from the legally protected realm and the public health safety net. Many sex workers cannot get access to healthcare, body check-ups, and legal recourse because they are not considered legal workers in many countries.

Although internet-supported sex work allows sex workers to take another full-time job to secure a layer of public safety net, while simultaneously dabbing their feet in exotic labor, the U.S. Congress quickly reacted and made websites liable for sex trafficking and prostitution. The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (2018), commonly known as FOSTA-SESTA, was passed in 2018. Although the primary intent of FOSTA-SESTA is to curb sex trafficking, the effects of FOSTA-SESTA on sex workers were far from protective. FOSTA- SESTA motivated platforms to greatly censor posts related to sex work. Popular online webcamming platforms including BongaCams, LiveJasmin, and Chaturbate tightened their restrictions and regulations, and other platforms such as Google and Craigslist began to remove or censor any commercialized sex content (Stegeman, 2021).

The censorship continues to pose obstacles to sex workers’ business and livelihood, including practices such as shadow banning. Shadow banning happens when a social media platform greatly limits the distribution of a user’s account based on their content. The reason why these platforms do not entirely delete sex workers’ accounts is that they still profit from selling sex workers’ data and offering paid promotion services for sex workers on their platforms. However, no online platform outwardly acknowledges shadow-banning sexual content.

Shadow banning is troublesome because social media serves as a vital channel for sex workers to attract customers to their OnlyFans pages. A 28-year-old OnlyFans sex worker Aella says, “Fan turnover is high, many people subscribe for a month, then drop off, so to be successful, a creator needs to consistently draw in new subscribers. A lot of sex workers do so through promoting themselves on Subreddit and Twitter” (Sauers, 2021). Because of the shadow banning, online sex workers invest significant unpaid labor in switching platforms, navigating the nuanced and varied Terms & Conditions for different social media platforms, and repeatedly rebuilding their subscriber base (Swords et al., 2023).

The backlash against sex workers’ rights highlights their financial insecurity and the unpredictability caused by societal disapproval. Recent policy changes can swiftly alter conditions, undermining their fanbase and leaving them vulnerable. Belle Grace, a U.K.-based OnlyFans model, fears further restrictive legislation that could marginalize sex workers, even on ostensibly inclusive platforms. The repeal of Roe v. Wade adds to these concerns, potentially restricting women’s access to contraception and affecting their participation in the sex industry (Conway, 2022). This uncertain future deeply unsettles sex workers.

Neoliberalism and post-feminism underpin shadow banning. FOSTA-SESTA operates on the premise that sex work platforms, rather than societal disrespect towards sex workers, cause sex trafficking. This post-feminist view overlooks the systematic stigma against female sexuality, treating it as if it no longer exists, and instead blames webcam platforms and sex workers’ choices for sex trafficking. In response to this policy, capitalists censor sex workers on social media while continuing to profit from them without acknowledging shadow banning. This neoliberal approach—emphasizing deinstitutionalization and non-intervention—intensifies the vulnerability of sex workers and exploits their surplus value. Shadow banning reveals the detrimental impact of the post-feminist neoliberal framework on sex workers, as it exacerbates their already precarious conditions by either ignoring policy intervention or implementing misguided policies based on post-feminist misconceptions of sex work.

C. Internal Stigma: Fear and Invisibility

Whether it is in the era of in-person sex work or online sex work, internal stigma has always been strongly correlated with the extent to which sex workers are concealing their careers from others. Escorts who hid their careers from others had less social support as a result, leading to lower job satisfaction than those who fully ‘came out’ as sex workers and were met with support (Koken, 2021).

The anonymity and flexibility of online sex work on platforms like OnlyFans appear to alleviate issues of stigma superficially. Sex workers who do sex work part-time can use pseudonyms and manage their workload independently. However, underlying shame and fear of identity disclosure persist. Evelyn Harlow, a 26-year-old OnlyFans model in Canada, keeps her sex work a secret to her family, except her sister, who’s her roommate. Gaining popularity through her posts scares her off sometimes: “I worry sometimes, where I’m making a post and part of me is like, ‘Oh, it would be so good for the business if this did really well,’” she says. “And then I’m like, ‘If this did really well, there’s a higher probability that someone I know will see it’” (Sauers, 2021). Every time they switch accounts to ensure their “work accounts” do not get exposed, and every time they meticulously make sure to shoot the footage required by clients in secret, this internal stigma intensifies.

D. Agency: Boundaries and Confidence

Agency, defined as the inner capability to make choices and exert control, is the only one in these four categories that experienced a resounding rise during the shift to online sex work. OnlyFans offer sex workers, to a decent extent, the right to say “no” to certain things that they feel forced to do and the autonomy to define the value of the time and effort they spend. Silvia Saige, a previous porn star and a current OnlyFans sex worker, said, “A big thing about studio work that you do is sometimes you just say, ‘I gotta grin and bear it.’ And you do a lotta things you don’t wanna do. OnlyFans allows me to be my own director, producer, booker, everything.” They make their own choice on how much they charge, what services to offer, and even sometimes set boundaries between clients and themselves. Saige explained that she sets guidelines for the fans. For example, if their clients send a picture of their penis, she asks that they also send a $20 tip. She does this because she wants an extra charge for “anything to make you feel like you’re spending more time with me than anybody else gets.” She goes on to add “My time is incredibly valuable, it’s nice for me to be able to put a price tag on that time” (Yang et al., 2021).

OnlyFans enables primarily women, often transitioning from low-paying jobs, to generate income, which inherently empowers them according to interview accounts. Aella, who was forced to leave college due to her inability to cover tuition, worked at a factory to assemble electrical components for $10 an hour, lived with five roommates in a cramped apartment where she slept on a mattress on the floor, and did not even have enough money for food. OnlyFans gave her the ability to support her own life—she now earns about $60,000 a month on OnlyFans (Sauers, 2021). Furthermore, the fact that OnlyFans takes away a relatively small portion of the profit is a big improvement over previous forms of sex work. “OnlyFans’ 20 percent cut offers much more advantageous financial terms to its creators than any cam site. The cut was surprisingly modest, especially given that adult websites pay higher fees to payment processors than other businesses,” Silvia Saige explains (Yang et al., 2021).

OnlyFans also empowers individuals who do not conform to modern beauty standards of being white and thin, offering them a sense of agency to be confident about their bodies. Wynter Mosely, an OnlyFans model since 2020, said people always criticize her body shape as fat in OnlyFans comments. For example, people say “‘Why can’t that Wynter chick just go be fat somewhere else,’ ‘She’s built like a damn appliance.’” However, OnlyFans gives her the courage to say “I don’t care.” “I’m fat but like I said, I make money so people love it,” she said (Yang et al., 2021). She cannot control how some perceive her body, yet the money she has earned on OnlyFans demonstrates how others admire her appearance. It highlights that beauty is not confined to a singular ideal, which gives her the confidence to not dwell on detractors’ opinions of her attractiveness. OnlyFans is also a big equalizer for black females in the sex industry.

Sinnamon Love, a 46-year-old veteran of the sex industry from Brooklyn and former porn actor, noted that companies producing pornography often allocate less effort and budget to projects involving black female actors due to a perceived mismatch with mainstream aesthetic standards that results in lower profitability. “The lighting is shitty, or the makeup is bad or whatever” she recalled (Sauers, 2021). However, as a black female herself, she is able to gain a steady fanbase and earn about $61,000 a year on OnlyFans, a fact reassuring and empowering enough.

Sex workers on OnlyFans describe their experiences as agentic, as it allows them to explore and embrace their sexuality without shame. Tattoo artist and sex worker Sarvani recalled that she suffered from eating disorders throughout her adolescence, college, and acting school in her 20s. In retrospect, she sees the shame she felt about her body as connected to the sexual shame that she had absorbed growing up in a “devout Catholic family where purity was emphasized and no one spoke openly about sex.” She mentioned that her engagement in online sex work is the journey of learning to enjoy herself sexually, which ultimately cured her illness. “I just got really hooked on the theory that if you’re ashamed of something, you should do the opposite of hiding it,” she said (Sauers, 2021). This way to find agency is not unique to online sex work, however—blogs of in-person sex workers also yield this result. From the blog archive of mohojustice, Suprihmbé, a full-time stripper and street worker, described: “As a bisexual woman who had been exploring her sexuality throughout childhood, I was eager to dabble in promiscuity and discover erotic pleasure, and my entrance into the idea of erotic labor was part of that.” She also added: “I didn’t feel exploited, and I wasn’t” (Suprihmbé, 2019). Suprihmbé views her experience as an escort as a pivotal, consensual step she chose to explore her sexuality and connect with her authentic self. The consensual sex work that readily became her passion should be celebrated, not stigmatized.

V. Discussion

A. “Whorearchy” and the Marginalization of In-Person Sex Workers

In terms of limitations, this paper analyzes four blogs from in-person sex workers and interviews with eight OnlyFans sex workers, but testimonies from in-person sex workers who continued after the advent of OnlyFans are missing. Despite the lack of direct testimonies, it can be inferred from existing research and reasoning that while the rise of online sex work has created new earning opportunities for traditional in-person sex workers, it has also deepened the stigma of those unable to transition successfully to online platforms. Post-feminism neoliberalism discourse plays a significant role in shaping this dynamic.

The advent of webcamming platforms like OnlyFans has reshaped the “whorearchy,” the hierarchical structure that differentiates levels of stigmatization among various forms of sex work (McClintock, 1991). At the pinnacle of the “whorearchy” are webcamming sex workers, who avoid direct contact with clients and often invest significantly in their appearance to maintain a feminine image. This type of sex work, deemed most acceptable by the media, aligns with affective states endorsed under neoliberalism, such as authentic engagement with the work, positivity, and resilience towards self-management. Conversely, prostitution occupies the lowest tier of the “whorearchy” due to its inherently in-person nature, explicit sexual focus, and the heightened physical risks associated with close client interactions. The media narratives perpetuated by the post-feminism neoliberal discourse frequently attribute violence against sex workers to their ‘risky lifestyle,’ reinforcing the notion that they are accountable for their own safety. The discourse suggests that sex workers should make ‘better’ (often equated with ‘safer’) choices about where and how they work.

However, urging in-person sex workers to make the ‘right’ choice in the digital age overlooks the fact that they have already made decisions based on their specific circumstances, considering various practical factors. The model that is deemed ideal is mainly accessible to sex workers who are already closer to social acceptance. These ‘false choices’ are dismissed as invalid and are portrayed as disempowering, dangerous, or problematic. Consequently, offline sex workers in the OnlyFans era face increased stigmatization, partly justified as punishment for not exhibiting ‘responsible self-management’ (Ringrose and Walkerdine, 2008: p. 229).

B. Double Standards and the Exploitation in Disguise

In many instances, the reasons people cite for discriminating against sex work are equally present in other normalized industries. For example, many believe that sex workers should not be respected because they “sell their bodies.” However, all workers exchange their labor for compensation, and working-class individuals are often coerced into choosing between accepting undervalued wages or facing economic hardship. Many industries commodify sexuality, and issues like desirability politics, racism, gendered violence, and ableism harm workers across various sectors. However, when these issues occur in the commercial sex industry, the solutions typically proposed display a distinct contempt for sex workers. Another common argument against sex work is that it lacks “dignity.” Yet, many jobs in the formal economy are inaccessible or openly hostile to caregivers; individuals with disabilities, chronic illnesses, or neurodivergence; undocumented individuals; people who use drugs; formerly incarcerated persons; gender and sexual minorities; those who are unhoused; and individuals without access to or interest in formal higher education.

Feminist debates about consent in sex work often centered around consent, and it falls into a dichotomy that sex workers are either consensually engaged or coerced. However, consent in sex work, like any job, is complex. This complexity is not a flaw of sex work but a broader issue under capitalism. Translators consent to long, stressful, last-minute hours due to the urgency of contracts; researchers consent to tackle less interesting or pertinent questions, still applying their skill set. However, when sex workers consensually engage in sexual activities they do not necessarily enjoy, it is viewed as more problematic. As a result, sex workers often feel compelled to defend their work by claiming they genuinely enjoy every sex act they perform, thereby asserting that no coercion or manipulation has occurred. However, this defense misses the point. Even if there are times when sex workers are less turned on by what they are doing, they should not have to love every second of every part of their job to assert that they consent to be there.

When placing sex work within the context of capitalism, we must also be cautious of overemphasizing agency, as no-intervention neoliberalism can lead to a gig economy that masks underlying inequalities and exploitation as freedom. Although sex workers in the interviews mentioned that OnlyFans makes it easier to earn money compared to other platforms, these workers are among the highly successful. In reality, half of OnlyFans’ over one million creators earn no more than $100 a month, with $750 placing a creator in the top 10% (Citrus, 2021). Due to the stigma against sex work, many individuals at the bottom of the OnlyFans income pyramid enter the precarious world of sex work for minimal financial reward and significant societal consequences. In contrast, celebrities like Bella Thorne and Iggy Azalea are among the most successful content creators on OnlyFans. Moreover, before digital sex work, large companies and agencies controlled sex workers and often required regular healthcare checkups. However, in the self-regulated era of digital sex work, healthcare and regular checkups may not be accessible to most sex workers, potentially harming their well-being.

C. Navigating a Feminist Sex Work Environment

After thoroughly interrogating the multifaceted and nuanced impacts of OnlyFans on the sex work industry, the most crucial aspect is to guide feminist actions, making them aware of previously overlooked gaps and inspiring efforts to fundamentally challenge the stigma towards sex work.

First, feminists should establish sex workers’ communities or rights organizations, ideally holding offline events. The mutual understanding fostered through community-building allows sex workers to release the external disrespect and internal invisibility they often navigate. Furthermore, drawing from Karl Marx, physical proximity can awaken consciousness among sex workers and empower them to collectively demand greater rights, countering power differentials between employers and employees (Marx, 1848). Further research could investigate whether offline communities differ significantly from more pervasive online communities in fostering resonance and resistance. Nonetheless, the effort to establish offline communities remains meaningful.

Secondly, given the intersectionality of feminist activism with movements for racial and other minority groups, efforts should be made to change discovery algorithms on online sex work platforms to ensure equitable representation, particularly for black and brown performers. Platforms should also prioritize creator safety by banning racial and identity slurs because by doing so, the platform generates more while simultaneously empowering creators of color.

Lastly, continuous advocacy is essential to secure the recognition of sex workers as legitimate workers in various regions, along with their rights to access healthcare and other vital social resources. This recognition is crucial for their acceptance into the public realm, allowing more sex workers to articulate their experiences of coercion, exploitation, solidarity, love, and strength in their own terms. Moreover, since women’s reproductive rights and legislation on birth control are closely intertwined with the legal rights of sex workers, advancements in women’s legal rights significantly impact the legal standing of sex workers.

VI. Conclusion

The rise of OnlyFans cannot be simply categorized as either empowering or stigmatizing for sex workers. As OnlyFans offers anonymity and relative invisibility, many sex workers treat it as supplementary income while maintaining full-time employment, which provides a layer of healthcare, legal safety, and a social circle with non-sex workers; However, hiding their identity from close individuals often results in fear and anxiety. The online nature of OnlyFans fosters harassment, privacy breaches, content distribution without consent, and shadow banning; yet it transcends geographical limits, allowing sex workers who do not conform to mainstream beauty standards to find appreciative clients, and the community aspect enables deep connections with clients and provides mechanisms to report and refuse disrespectful customers.

The dynamics of OnlyFans are largely shaped by the post-feminism neoliberalism discourse. This discourse creates a “whorearchy,” favoring socially acceptable forms of sex work and marginalizing those who have not transitioned from offline to online work. This hierarchy perpetuates stigma by marginalizing sex workers for not adhering to traditional female expectations and attributing their disadvantaged status to personal choices. Arising from the free market system championed by neoliberalism, institutionalized stigma, reinforced by mechanisms like shadow banning, exploits sex workers while profiting from them, exacerbating the unequal power dynamic.

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About the author

Luoxuan Zhang

Luoxuan is a rising senior at the Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University in Beijing, China. She is deeply concerned about women’s rights and queer rights within neoliberal social formations. Her research primarily focuses on various groups marginalized by societal discourse: sex workers, queer communities, migrant workers, etc. She frequently explores their intersections with social psychology and political dynamics.

Her favorite school subjects are psychology and literature. In her spare time, she enjoys reading poetry, with her favorite poet being Mary Oliver. Luoxuan has a passion for jazz music, and has formed a jazz band outside of school as well as organizing subway jazz performance sessions; she also enjoys street dance and choreographs her own routines. She is a body positivity activist who organized body psychotherapy sessions and wrote plays performed by disabled individuals.

The post Stigma, Agency, and “Whorearchy”: a Post-feminism Neoliberal Discourse Analysis of Sex Work in the Era of OnlyFans appeared first on Exploratio Journal.

I. Introduction

Poor maternal and child health in Nigeria is a chronic issue. In 2022, Nigeria had a maternal mortality rate of 512 deaths per 100000 live births, among the highest in the world, accounting for over 34% of global maternal deaths (MATERNAL MORTALITY IN NIGERIA – THISDAYLIVE; Adejoro). In response, the government of Nigeria initiated the Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Week (MNCHW), amongst other programs. This essay seeks to evaluate the strengths and limitations of the design and implementation of the Nigerian MNCHW and provide recommendations to strengthen the campaign.

I will first introduce the methodology used to write the paper. Then, I will provide background information regarding the Nigerian MNCHW, followed by an overview and analysis of the program’s outcomes. Finally, I will provide recommendations for strengthening the campaign. The analysis explains how the Nigerian MNCHW suffers from issues also faced by other public policies in Nigeria. Thus, the analysis and suggestions can also be used to strengthen overall public health programming in Nigeria.

II. Methodology: Literature Review

The primary methodology used is literature review. A range of sources, including secondary evaluations, journals, and news articles, were evaluated to gain a thorough understanding of the design and implementation of the MNCHW.

The primary sources used are the evaluative reports by the Nigeria Country Office of UNICEF, the Center for Maternal and Newborn Health of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and the OR Researcher Team (Dr. E Ferguson, Dr. J Webster, Dr. C Yohanna-Dzingina, Prof. I Akinyele and Dr. O Adeyemi). These reports present quantitative and qualitative data gathered from different states of Nigeria, allowing for insights into the design and implementation of the MNCHW from the data they offer and their conclusions. Both the UNICEF and LSTM reports evaluate the Nigerian MNCHW’s impact on the implemented interventions through Contribution Analysis, which helps managers, researchers, and policymakers determine the Nigerian MNCHW’s impact on Nigeria’s maternal and child health status (Contribution Analysis | Better Evaluation). 

Though the three evaluative reports are the most comprehensive sources, the evaluations’ time periods are dated, and the geographical scope is limited. The research and analysis of the MNCHW program could be enhanced by a deeper and more current literature pool. Further data collection and research are recommended for future studies on the Nigerian MNCHW.

III. Background

Nigeria suffers from some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. The leading causes of maternal deaths include infection, obstructed labor, unsafe abortion, and malaria, mainly caused by the lack of access to knowledge about pregnancy complications and health services (National Population Commission).

In response to the acute maternal and child health issues plaguing Nigeria and the health objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), along with the State Primary Health Care Development Agency (SPHCDA) and the State Ministries of Health initiated various programs, including the MNCHW in Nigeria in 2009 (Securing Greater Funding for Nutrition, Maternal Newborn and Child Healthcare Interventions in Nigeria – THISDAYLIVE). At the time, Nigeria had a high maternal mortality rate of 1099 per 100000 live births and an infant mortality rate of 89 per 1000 live births (“World Bank Open Data”; Nigeria Infant Mortality Rate 1950-2023).

The MNCHW started as Child Health Days (CHD), initiated by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1999. It was implemented in other countries such as Ethiopia and Sierra Leone (UNICEF Nigeria Country Office).

In Nigeria, the NPHCDA aimed to significantly increase the coverage of existing interventions to improve maternal and child health through implementing the MNCHW (Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week (MNCHW) | Interventions | Maternal Figures – Nigeria’s Maternal Health in Focus). The beneficiaries of the Nigerian MNCHW include mothers and children aged 0 to 59 months from all states of Nigeria. The Week occurs twice a year and aims to reduce maternal and child mortality and improve maternal and child health by providing a comprehensive set of interventions (The OR Researcher Team).

The NPHCDA recommended 19 sets of interventions. However, the state governments have the authority to modify the interventions to fit local needs. Examples of interventions for pregnant women include ante-natal care, tetanus toxoid, and HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT). Nursing women received counseling regarding family planning and Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission. Interventions such as newborn care, immunization, and Long Lasting Insecticidal Treated Nets are provided to children aged 0-5 months. Children 6-59 years old received Vitamin A supplementation, deworming, nutrition screening, etc. (UNICEF Nigeria Country Office). In addition, the week educated women on family planning, sanitation, and feeding.

The constitutional structure, and in particular the authority of the federal and state governments of Nigeria, is central to understanding the organization and implementation of nationwide public health programs, including the MNCHW. Nigeria’s federal system consists of the federal government, 36 states, and one territory (The Federal Capital Territory). In turn, the states and the Federal Capital Territory comprise 774 Local Government Areas. The federal system is highly decentralized, and the Nigerian Constitution doesn’t specify the functions and responsibilities of each tier of government in public health services. Though the National Health Policy prescribes primary health (PHC) care under the control of local governments, other levels of government are also involved in the management of PHC, resulting in poor coordination and the lack of a clearly defined accountability framework (Eboreime et al.). 

Compounding the challenges of implementing public health policies in Nigeria’s federal system, the Nigerian MNCHW also has a complex and unclearly defined management system with duplicated roles and responsibilities for different levels of government. As the dictated leaders of the implementation of the Nigerian MNCHW, the NPHCDA is primarily responsible for national planning and coordination of the MNCHW, with the Federal Ministry of Health providing assistance. However, the State Ministries of Health (SMOH) and State Primary Health Care Development Agencies (SPHCDA) have significant authority in the implementation at the state and local levels. For example, though the NPHCDA sets the implementation dates, the states have the power to adjust the dates. The state ministries and agencies are also responsible for funding the procurement of commodities and training healthcare workers. UNICEF and other international organizations, including Save the Children, Vitamin Angels, Helen Keller International, and Micronutrient Initiative, are also involved in the implementation system. They mainly provide material supplies and technical support. However, some organizations are also involved in the responsibilities of the national and state government. As a result, some functions, such as training of health workers, social mobilization, and monitoring, are shared among different tiers of government and international and non-governmental organizations. For example, the Federal Ministry of Health, NPHCDA, SPHCDA, and Helen Keller International are all involved in training healthcare providers.

IV. Outcome of the Nigerian MNCHW

While the Nigerian MNCHW has made some impact, it needs to be strengthened to become more effective. Evaluative studies evidence that from 2010 to 2015, the Nigerian MNCHW partly achieved two expected outcomes. First, it made a substantial contribution to the improved coverage of Vitamin A supplementation, deworming, insecticide-treated bed nets, and measles vaccine, according to Palmer et al. (UNICEF Nigeria Country Office). Another significant expected outcome of the MNCHW is that its health education led to changes in the recipients’ behaviors and an increase in the utilization of family planning. During Focus Group Discussions, participants of the MNCHW reflected that the program boosted their awareness of the importance of health issues and that the services provided were helpful (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine).

However, the Nigerian MNCHW has yet to significantly contribute to the increase in coverage of all maternal and child health interventions. According to a study on the 2012 MNCHW, at Rivers State, out of the 15 interventions investigated, only the coverage rate of Vitamin A supplementation reached 43.41%; the coverage rates of the remaining ones were all below 20% (Ordinioha). Moreover, the UNICEF evaluative report acknowledges insufficient proof that the MNCHW has improved the overall health outcomes for mothers, newborns, and kids in Nigeria.

V. Analysis

As a general matter, it is well-established that implementing public policy programs in Nigeria is fundamentally challenging due to the lack of government commitment, human and material resources shortages, and ineffective collaboration between health ministries (Nigeria). According to Atakpa et al., public policy implementation in Nigeria has the following problems (Atakpa et al.):

1. Ineffective administration,
2. Lack of coordination and communication,
3. Disconnection between policymakers and beneficiaries,
4. Over-reliance on international institutions,
5. Bureaucracy, and
6. Corruption.

As described below, the Nigerian MNCHW also suffered some of the problems widely recognized in public policy programs in Nigeria.

A. Ineffective administration

Ineffective administration is the major cause of the poor implementation of the Nigerian MNCHW at the state and local levels. First and foremost, implementation was not well supported by the local governments. In Rivers State, for example, the implementation committees complained about the lack of support from the Local Government Councils (Ordinioha). The lack of political will depleted the commitment of the health workers. Secondly, the administrative ministries failed to recruit enough healthcare providers with sufficient health knowledge, which directly worsened the quality of health services and education provided by the campaign. For example, the desired percentage of healthcare providers with adequate knowledge of normal labor and delivery care in urban regions of Osun State is 60%, but the actual percentage is only 9.5% (Performance Needs Assessment of Maternal and Newborn Health Service Delivery in Urban and Rural Areas of Osun State, South-West, Nigeria).

Ineffective administration also plagued action at the federal level. The poor administration led to flawed fund delivery, causing some states not to receive sufficient budgeted funding. Funds received by the implementation committee in Rivers State were only 10% of the budgeted amount and arrived late (Ordinioha). Insufficient funding led to the poor social mobilization of the campaign in Rivers State as the committees couldn’t fund promotions through posters and flyers (Ordinioha). As a further example, in Benue State, only 40% of the surveyed facilities had an associated town announcer to promote the campaign (Korenromp et al.).

B. Lack of coordination and communication

Another public policy problem common in Nigeria that the MNCHW experienced was the lack of coordination and communication in program implementation.

First, there was a lack of coordination among health workers at the health centers. For example, health centers in Rivers State were not uniformly staffed with health workers, so there were also local nurses and doctors in the health centers. However, the leaders of the healthcare centers had no authority over the nurses and doctors. As a result, they didn’t work together well, which led to less desirable implementation quality (Ordinioha). 

Poor coordination and communication also led to shortages of commodities and health service equipment in some states. Equipment and material supplies were not consistently available in all states due to the mixed delivery of supplies from national and state levels and the delayed delivery of commodities (UNICEF Nigeria Country Office). In Rivers State, for example, most commodities were unavailable or insufficient (Ordinioha). In the urban regions of Osun State, only 42.9% of health facilities had essential drugs and consumables (Performance Needs Assessment of Maternal and Newborn Health Service Delivery in Urban and Rural Areas of Osun State, South-West, Nigeria). In Benue State, most facilities had no or insufficient behavioral change communication materials, and activities were delayed due to the late delivery of materials (Korenromp et al.). Since most beneficiaries had to travel long distances to the health facilities, some of them quit attending the MNCHW after being sent back due to commodity shortages. Commodity shortages and delayed activities disappointed the beneficiaries and led to low participation, depleting the effectiveness of the program, including the trust of beneficiaries in the government’s program.

C. Disconnection between policymakers and beneficiaries

The Nigerian government’s top-down operation alienates the people from policy design and implementation (Atakpa et al.). Most community leaders are not involved in decision-making, only receiving executing instructions. Consequently, the policymakers were unable to address various challenges, including, most notably, the barriers to women’s attendance and participation in the MNCHW, which led to low participation in most states. Due to the lack of evidence and the limitation of research data, it is unclear how widely spread this problem is. However, it is known that this issue is acute in the Muslim communities, which constitute a significant proportion of Nigerian society. According to available data, only 27.8% of the respondents to the LSTM’s survey attended the MNCHW in 2015 (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine). Lack of support from spouses (permission, money, transportation, encouragement), mistrust regarding free government services, worries about the wife mingling with other men, or religious convictions was among the causes of non-attendance (The OR Researcher Team). Travel distance, supply shortages, and negative experiences at healthcare institutions also hindered attendance (The OR Researcher Team).

The ineffective social mobilization led to a lack of awareness of the campaign among beneficiaries. On the state level, only 28.57% of participants in the interviews conducted by the Department of Community Medicine of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital at Rivers State in 2012 were aware of the campaign (Ordinioha). Amongst 5389 households interviewed by the LSTM research team, over half of them were not aware of the existence of the MNCHW, and only 12% of mothers in Jigawa and Zamfara States were aware of the campaign, suggesting that the MNCHW lacked overall awareness amongst Nigerians and awareness among the target population (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; The OR Researcher Team). The ineffective promotion is attributed to the lack of funding, which is caused by the poor administration at the federal level, demonstrating that Nigeria has compounding policy failures.

D. Other challenges

Apart from the above problems, the implementation of the Nigerian MNCHW was also affected by external factors. Service delivery was interrupted by heavy rains, and attacks by local militia occurred during the implementation of the campaign in Benue State (Ordinioha; Korenromp et al.). Heath facilities were vandalized, and three local government areas were burnt down (Korenromp et al.). 

The Nigerian MNCHW could have avoided heavy rains by scheduling the MNCHW during the dry seasons. However, the militia attacks were hard to predict and avert. The unstable political situation in Nigeria and other low-income countries challenges the implementation of public health programs.

VI. Recommendations

It is widely recognized that good governance requires equity, transparency, participation, responsiveness, accountability, and the rule of law. These aspects are crucial for human development and implementing effective public health programs since ineffective institutions usually result in the greatest harm to those who are poor and vulnerable.

This paper is going to focus exclusively on accountability in governance and how, in particular, boosting accountability could strengthen the Nigerian MNCHW. This paper has shown how accountability is crucial. The MNCHW’s unclear accountability mechanisms have caused ineffective administration and poor coordination. Additionally, the sheer lack of data produced in this program has hindered effective evaluation. The NPHCDA should create an accountability framework in collaboration with state governments and stakeholders at both the central and state levels to enhance coordination and track advancement. This framework will make effective oversight of inputs, actions, and outcomes possible, which will help to improve implementation quality and enhance the public’s trust in the government (Kisiangani et al.). Suggestions for increasing financial, performance, and political accountability are provided below.

A. Financial accountability

Financial accountability pertains to the tracking and reporting of the allocation and utilization of financial resources (Accountability and Health Systems: Toward Conceptual Clarity and Policy Relevance | Health Policy and Planning | Oxford Academic). The Nigerian MNCHW has weak financial accountability as it doesn’t even have a comprehensive budgeting process and effective tracking system (UNICEF Nigeria Country Office).

To enhance financial accountability, the establishment of a transparent funding framework that records and allows efficient tracking of the allocation and utilization of funding is crucial. In addition, hearings and investigations on spending should be frequently held to bolster and monitor the following of the financial accountability framework.

The policymakers could also reach out to other partners, such as NGOs and funding agencies, to expand funding and resources. However, the NPHSDA should strictly regulate and constrain the supporting bodies’ political involvement in the program to avoid the risk of chaotic and sluggish administration.

B. Performance accountability

Performance accountability concerns whether the services and outputs of public health agencies and programs meet the agreed-upon expectations (Accountability and Health Systems: Toward Conceptual Clarity and Policy Relevance | Health Policy and Planning | Oxford Academic). The Nigerian MNCHW could better fulfill the expectations and needs of the beneficiaries by enhancing performance accountability in the following two ways.

First, the campaign should be community-based. Each community should have at least one health facility to provide the MNCHW services, and the leading health workers should communicate with the community leaders to learn each community’s specific needs and social norms and adjust ways to provide the services accordingly. This strategy enhances performance accountability by better understanding and meeting the beneficiaries’ needs and increasing the people’s participation in decision-making. Increased performance accountability enhances people’s trust in the governmental public health program and thus could boost participation. Community-based service could also increase participation by reducing the travel distance to the health centers, which is one of the barriers to attendance to the MNCHW.

Second, the NPHCDA and State Primary Health Care Development Agencies (SPHCDA) should design context-specific MNCH weeks. The maternal and child health status and coverages of different interventions vary across different states in Nigeria. Based on a state’s specific situation, interventions that best address that state’s maternal and child health issues should be implemented intensively. Moreover, extra interventions and outreach programs should be used in addition to the core set of interventions that can be conducted consistently (National Population Commission). This strategy increases performance accountability by utilizing the resources more effectively and better meeting the needs of the people. The Kaduna State Case Study supports the suggestion as it is a successful case, and the State focused on interventions with low coverage rather than all 17 interventions (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine).

C. Political accountability

Political accountability refers to the government fulfilling the public trust, representing the public’s interests, and responding to societal needs and concerns (Accountability and Health Systems: Toward Conceptual Clarity and Policy Relevance | Health Policy and Planning | Oxford Academic). Thus, improving the political accountability of the Nigerian MNCHW could enhance the public’s trust and thus increase participation.

To respond and fulfill public trust, the NPHCDA should accurately introduce the MNCHW interventions and explain their related health benefits through social mobilization channels to all the beneficiaries and their relatives (The OR Researcher Team). This strategy encourages participation and thus also boosts the coverage of maternal and child health interventions.

The government should also regularly update the implementation status of the program to continually promote the campaign and prove to the Nigerian people that the government is making actual improvements.

The previously mentioned suggestion of allowing community leaders to get involved in the planning and implementation of the MNCHW at the local level could also increase political accountability. Engaging the community leaders in decision-making ensures that the implementation of the campaign conforms to each community’s values and cultures. The beneficiaries would be more willing to accept the services provided when their values are respected.

VII. Conclusion

The MNCHW was initiated by the NPHCDA in Nigeria in response to the Sustainable Development Goals and the acute maternal and child health issues in Nigeria.

Evaluation of the Nigerian MNCHW is hindered by the lack of a wide range of current data. Access to a pool of robust and current data regarding the implementation of the MNCHW at all states of Nigeria enables researchers to produce more accurate, comprehensive, and steadfast evaluations. The Nigerian government needs to undertake an effective and continuous monitoring mechanism to boost the data pool.

Available data shows that the MNCHW has made some impact but is considered inadequate overall due to the lack of awareness and participation, limited contribution to the increase in maternal and child health intervention coverage, and poor quality of services provided. The main causes of the undesirable outcomes of the Nigerian MNCHW are issues common in the implementation of public policy in Nigeria, including ineffective administration, poor coordination and communication, and disconnection between policymakers and beneficiaries. These issues are attributed to the absence of a clearly defined accountability framework.

Governance of the Nigerian MNCHW could be improved from various aspects. This paper mainly recommends that the NPHCDA improve the Nigerian MNCHW design and implementation by establishing an accountability framework and enhancing financial, performance, and political accountability accordingly. 

Overall, the accountability framework could potentially strengthen not only the MNCHW, but also other health policy programs in Nigeria as they face similar challenges. Ineffective public policy programs is a tragic issue in Nigeria. Problems of the system undermine the ability of the government to deliver crucial services to the most vulnerable. Strengthening data collection, accountability and other dimensions of policy development and implementation could have a profound impact of delivering crucial services to the most vulnerable populations.

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About the author

Xinyu Chen

Xinyu is a rising senior at YK Pao School, interested in Human Rights Studies, Public Policy, and Biology.

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