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DURING THE LAST few decades, religious organizations have played a major role in processes of transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Interventions by the Catholic Church in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, the Philippines (Casper 1995), South Korea, and Poland, and by various Protestant denominations from South Africa to East Asia, have raised new questions about the role played by religious organizations in regime change (Smith 1974). In Taiwan, the Presbyterian Church stood at the forefront of the struggle for democratization during the 1970s and 1980s (see Rubinstein, chapter 9 in this volume). However, despite their remarkable achievements in the areas of education, welfare provision, and charity—not to mention proselytizing—and despite the fact that they are far more numerous than their Christian compatriots (Zhong 1993, 258-286), 1 Buddhists did not play a comparable role in the process of transition to democracy in Taiwan. One is left with the impression that Buddhists were at best indifferent to politics and at worst hostile to democratization. The present essay questions these propositions by documenting the political beliefs and behaviors adopted by Chinese Buddhist organizations in Taiwan since 1947. This discussion concentrates on the relation between the Kuomintang (or Guomindang; hereafter KMT), the ruling party in Taiwan until Chen Shuibian's election to the presidency in March 2000, and three prominent organizations affiliated with the Chinese school of Mahayana Buddhism. These organizations represent three of the most important Buddhist orga-