本文試圖探討自民國70年代中葉以降，臺灣在政治上經歷的快速「民主化」變遷，在地方上的植基情形。主要問題有三：在這段時期，地方政治發生了什麼變遷?這些變遷意寓的是穩定還是不穩定的發展？最後，這些變遷是不是推向民主。本文運用杭亭頓的政治變遷理論與民主化的相關論述，及兩波地方菁英的實証調查資料（民82年及90年）來探討檢証上述問題。最後初步肯定臺灣地方政治確實也發生相當的變遷，尤其在領導、政策、及團體的層面上，但在政治結構、及文化層面則相對變化幅度較小，速率較慢；這些現象基本符合杭亭頓所指涉的「穩定變遷」。而在整體變遷方向上，是顯現朝向「民主化」的。

This paper explores political change at the local level in Taiwan during the process of rapid democratization since the mid-1980's, Three related questions are raised: what changes occurred in Taiwan's local politics during this period; did these changes on the whole manifest a stable or a non-stable outcome? Finally, did all these changes point to a democratic direction? This paper employs both Huntington's theory regarding political change and propositions derived from the literature related to democratization. The data used by this paper were gleaned from a two-wave survey of Taiwanese local leaders (1993-2001). The preliminary findings are: local politics in Taiwan, indeed, have been undergoing some substantial changes during this period. Relatively speaking, the scope of the changes in leadership, policy and group dynamics has been much broader than that of political structure and culture. The rate of change, in the former three areas also appears to have been a lot faster than that of the latter two. On the whole, the phenomenon of local political change in Taiwan in the last 15 years or so signifies more a “stable” one, in Huntington's terms, than a non-stable one. The direction of local political change in Taiwan has also been democratic during the same period.