Journal of Electoral Studies

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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 Economic Voting and Party Rotation-The Case of County Magistrates and City Mayors Elections in Taiwan

Economic Voting and Party Rotation-The Case of County Magistrates and City Mayors Elections in Taiwan

Jr-Tsung Huang and Hsiao-Ling Cheng
2005 / 11
Volume 12, No.2

pp.45-78
10.6612/tjes.2005.12.02.45-78
Paper

Abstract

This paper applies the economic voting theory to analyze the county magistrates and city mayors elections in Taiwan and uses a county-and city- level pooling data from 1989 to 2001 to examine the possible factors which cause the party rotation of the county magistrates and city mayors elections. After estimating Probit model, the primary finding is that the local unemployment rates have no impact on election outcomes of the county magistrates and city mayors. Instead, the national unemployment rates have a significant effect on election outcomes. Generally, the probabilities of party rotation of the counties and cities ruled by the president's party are lower than others. However, this advantage will be damaged as the national unemployment rate is higher in the election year than that in the previous year. Additionally, the incumbents are more likely to defeat the challengers and renew their term of office. Finally, the longer the governing party rules the county or city, the higher the probability of party rotation for this county or city.

Keywords

economic voting

local election

party rotation

renew term of office