Journal of Electoral Studies

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Political Knowledge among the Electorate in Taiwan

Chiung-Chu Lin
2005 / 05
Volume 12, No.1

pp.147-171
10.6612/tjes.2005.12.01.147-171
Paper

Abstract

Classical democratic theory hypothesizes that good citizens should have highly interests in politics, be rational, and hold their own opinion in each issue or public affairs. But in the real political world, political scientists were depressed by empirical findings that people know very little about politics. However, it is very important for maintaining a democratic system that individuals are familiar with the process of political institutions, and have essential knowledge in political affairs. In this paper, we demonstrated that political knowledge among the electorate in Taiwan did increase. There are nearly 25% know nothing at all in 1992 on political factual questions, but there are only 5% did in 2000. Meanwhile, the level of political knowledge also affects one's response on political attitude questions obviously. The low informed inclined to express they did not hold any opinions on the questions. Besides, in our models, education, sex, the span of reading newspaper, and the span of watching television have significant influence on the level of public political knowledge. Male, better education, and spent much time in reading newspapers will be more informed. Informed voters also tend to participate more.

Keywords

political knowledge

political sophistication

political participation