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Coming out of Silence: Candidates’ Stances on LGBT Rights in Taiwan’s 2014 Municipal Councilor Elections

  •  Shih-chan Dai
  •  2016 / 05  

    Volume 23, No.1

     

    pp.39-62

  •  10.6612/tjes.2016.23.01.39-62

Abstract

Although public opinion in Taiwan is increasingly in favor of gay rights, there is no corresponding trend at the elite level and no concrete policy changes have been achieved. Based on the logic of electoral competition and political socialization, this paper takes the 2014 elections for municipal councilors in Taiwan as an example and examines the factors influencing support for LGBT equality among local politicians. Theoretically, although the centrifugal effect of the SNTV system motivates candidates of the same party to differ from each other on a variety of issues, political socialization, on the contrary, encourages a more unified issue stance taken among party members. The results of multilevel models suggest that there is little linkage between the characteristics of constituents, the electoral rule, and candidates’ stances on gay rights. However, both partisanship and age play an indispensable role. Candidates who are members of the DPP or one of the liberal parties are more likely to support LGBT rights than their KMT counterparts.