The purpose of this article is to examine the relative influence of the legislative branch and executive branch in the process of lawmaking, under different periods of time of the unified and divided government. This research focuses on the fourth term of the Legislative Yuan. The research period of time ranges from 1999 February to 2002 January, divided into two periods: the first begins from February 1999 to May 2000, in which the KMT dominates the executive and the legislative branches. The second period of time begins from May 2000 to January 2002, in which the DPP dominates the executive branch and the KMT dominates the legislative branch. The research focuses on all initiations in the fourth term of the Legislative Yuan. The research findings show: First, the executive branch plays an important role in the process of lawmaking. However, the influence of the executive branch is quite different in the unified and divided governments. The initiation of the executive branch can be passed much easier and faster in the unified government than in the divided government. This finding shows that if the party of the executive branch cannot get a majority of seats in the legislative branch, it is more difficult for it to lead in the policy-making process. Secondly, The KMT and DPP legislators play quite different roles in the legislative process. In the unified government, the DPP legislators are much more aggressive in the legislative process. However, the DPP legislators are much more inactive in the legislative process since the DPP gets the executive power. On the contrary, the KMT legislators are much more aggressive in the legislative process in the divided government since the KMT loses the executive power.

After the 2000 presidential election, for the first time in Taiwan history, a Democratic Progressive Party candidate was elected as the President of the Republic of China. However, in the Legislative Yuan, KMT still had majority of seats. As a result, one party controlled the presidency, while the other party held a majority in the Legislative Yuan.

What are the consequences when the presidency and congress are controlled by different parties? Will it lead to institutional conflict and mutual antagonism? Or, will the Legislative Yuan try to expand their check on the Executive Yuan and president? Will it lead to legislative stalemate or gridlock?

This study focuses on the interaction between the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan, especially the budget review and legislation review. If we just consider what percentage of the executive’s budget is cut by the legislature, there is no major difference between minority and majority governments. However, if we examine the number and content of resolutions accompanying the budget review, we find that the opposition parties take advantage of their legislative majority to pass resolutions that bind or restrict the behavior or the policy of the Executive Yuan.

During the era of divided party control, the bills proposed by the Executive Yuan take a longer time to pass than the bills proposed by opposition party members. Moreover, the records of roll-call votes also reveal that the DPP lost more than 60 percent of their votes, compared with the less than 2 percent that the KMT lost during the majority government period. The roll-call vote data also show that more party votes and more pan-blue and pan-green competition occur and at the same time party cohesion increases. All these statistics point to the same conclusion, that is, the DPP government does face serious challenges from the opposition parties in the Legislation Yuan because they do not have a majority of seats in the Legislative Yuan.