Professor Dafydd Fell

Dafydd Fell’s interest in Taiwanese politics began after a year as a language student in Taipei in the late 1980s.

After graduating from a degree in Chinese Studies he spent most of the 1990s working in Taiwan in the education, broadcasting, tourism, agricultural and sports management sectors. Being an eyewitness to Taiwan’s transition away from authoritarian rule has helped shape his subsequent research at SOAS. He joined the SOAS Politics Department as a PhD student in 1999 and has been teaching here since 2003.

Dafydd’s main research focus has been on Taiwan’s political parties and electoral politics. His first book, Party Politics in Taiwan (Routledge, 2005) examined party change in the first fifteen years of multi-party politics. He frequently visits Taiwan for fieldwork and election observing. He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on Taiwan’s party system, new parties, party switching, candidate selection and how parties learn from electoral setbacks. His second book Government and Politics in Taiwan was published by Routledge in 2011 and a revised and updated second edition was published in 2018.

Over the last few years he has been working on a project on the politics of migration and has a co-edited volume titled Migration to and from Taiwan (Routledge, 2014). He also has shifted his attention towards Taiwan’s social movements, publishing an edited book titled Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou in 2017. Recently, he has edited a number of volumes on Taiwan, including Taiwan Studies Revisited, published in 2019, Taiwan’s Economic and Diplomatic Challenges and Opportunities (2021) and Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples (2021). His latest single authored book is Taiwan’s Green Parties (Routledge 2021) and he is currently working with three co-authors on a Chinese version of the book. He is also the book series editor for the Routledge Research on Taiwan Series.

Dafydd has been active in developing the field of Taiwan studies at SOAS and beyond. He helped establish the European Association of Taiwan Studies in 2004 and was the Association’s Secretary General for 8-years. As Director of the SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies he has helped develop the world’s most extensive Taiwan Studies teaching, academic events and publications programme.

• SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies
• SOAS Taiwan Studies Teaching
• Publication programme

In recent years he has taught: Elections, Gender and Social Movements in Taiwan; Political Parties and Elections; Taiwan and International Politics; and Comparing Democracies in Northeast Asia. 

1. Party Politics in Taiwan 
2. Government and Politics in Taiwan
3. Migration to and from Taiwan  
4. Taiwan’s Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou 
5. Taiwan Studies Revisited 
6. Taiwan’s Economic and Diplomatic Challenges and Opportunities 
7. Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples  
8. Taiwan’s Green Parties 

Taiwanese Political Parties; Election Advertising; Social Welfare; Political Corruption; Public Opinion; Voting Behaviour; Gender Equality; Candidate Selection; Party switching and mergers; Green parties; Democratisation