近年來民粹主義經常被用來描述臺灣民主政治的缺陷與困境，但對 20年來兩位重要民粹主義領袖的批判，卻包含截然不同的兩種模式。本文目的在尋找一條軸線，說明臺灣過去 20年來民粹主義的發展。回顧近年來的民粹主義研究後，本文主張民粹主義的核心乃是「人民」對抗「他者」、驅逐「他者」的想像，因此過去批判民粹主義是政治人物「自上而下」召喚「人民」的政治操作之觀點並不充分，應更重視民粹主義的社會根源；與其說政治人物召喚了「人民」，不如說他們僅是利用了這股潮流，進行「人民」和「他者」兩者的界定。本研究指出 1980年末期至 1990年代間臺灣的社會力量興起的過程中，逐步轉化為人民對抗他者的民粹主義雛形。兩位民粹領袖皆沿著政治改革與民族主義的軸線來進行民粹主義操作。在李登輝時期，民粹主義裡的「他者」主要是指國民黨內部的保守勢力，同時被民族主義認為是外來政權的殘餘。而在陳水扁時期，「他者」的想像不僅擴張到國民黨整體，更包括特權人士與既得利益者的黑金集團；陳水扁執政中期自反特權民粹主義轉向與民族主義相結合，將中國的代言人也納入「他者」的想像中。本文認為儘管兩者有著相當不同的面貌，但民粹主義的發展軸線，仍維持著一致的邏輯。

Populism is frequently a keyword in critiques of Taiwan’s democracy. The goal of this paper is to determine the predominant theme of Taiwanese populism over the past two decades in an environment where two prominent populist leaders have promoted different modes of populism. According to recent analyses, the core idea of populism is imagination of community, which starts a rivalry between two groups--‘the people’ and ‘others.’ The authors point out the argument that Taiwan’s populism was cultivated from the above is not sufficient in light of the social origin of the people’s imagination. We also note that the emergence of social forces starting in the late 1980s and lasting into the 1990s made a significant contribution to the beginnings of Taiwanese populism. Two populist leaders enhanced these social forces via calls for political reforms and a sense of Taiwanese nationalism: Lee Teng-hui positioned Kuomintang Party conservatives as ‘others,’ while Chen Shui-bian combined the ideas of ‘antiprivilege populism’ and nationalism to label the KMT as consisting of privileged elites, corrupted politicians, and China advocates. This paper concludes that a continuous axis exists within Taiwanese populism despite the existence of different political actions.