Yingge

— There is also another model for the organization of conflict in Chinese society, the factional model. Gallin, in one of the first analytical studies of such factionalism, shows how the breakdown of the traditional lineage-based social order of a rural township in central Taiwan led to the formation of township-wide political factions, based on personal loyalties to patron-leaders (Gallin 1966b). These factions contested elections to political office and engaged in other disputes, reaching into and dividing individual villages. Similar factions permeate the political life of Yingge township, close to Sanxia. Indeed one cannot talk to a man from Yingge for more than a few minutes without hearing stories of the factions, their disputes, and their relative success in the latest elections.