Aiming for Achilles’ Heel: A relational explanation of the ascendency of pro-nuclear activism in Taiwan, 2013-2020

Movement-countermovement dynamics have frequently been examined under the lenses of resource mobilization theory and political opportunity theory. This article develops a relational perspective, which is implicit in previous works and complementary to existing perspectives, to analyze how an initially weak countermovement expands and defeats its stronger opponent. The movement’s strength is not determined by its internal characteristics, but is contextually defined by its relationship with opponents. A countermovement gains ground by strategically targeting the opposing movement’s vulnerabilities. This article examines the emergence of Taiwan’s pro-nuclear movement in 2013 and how it succeeded in a 2018 referendum by abolishing a planned nuclear phase-out deadline. Taiwan’s environmentalists’ diffuse concerns, adoption of institutional channels after the 2016 transition of power, and insufficient attention to the climate change issue were all extensively exploited by pro-nuclear activists. As such, Taiwan’s pro-nuclear activists gained ground not because of their strength, but because of skilled exploitation of the weakness of their rivals.