Journal of Electoral Studies

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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.2 Political Empowerment, Ethnic Groups, and Political Participation: Political Trust and Voting Participation of the Hakkas in the 2001 County Magistrate/City Mayoral Elections in Taiwan

Political Empowerment, Ethnic Groups, and Political Participation: Political Trust and Voting Participation of the Hakkas in the 2001 County Magistrate/City Mayoral Elections in Taiwan

Chung-Li Wu and Shih-Hung Lee
2005 / 05
Volume 12, No.1

pp.69-115
10.6612/tjes.2005.12.01.69-115
Paper

Abstract

This study examines the theoretical linkages of political participation of (ethnic/racial) minority groups. Instead of the perspectives of ”socioeconomic model” and ”psychological factor” developed in preceding literature, this research employs ”empowerment theory” of minority politics to account for the levels of political trust and voting participation of the Hakkas in the 2001 county magistrate/city mayoral elections in Taiwan. Using the 2001 Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study (TEDS 2001) survey data, we examine whether the Hakkas in high-empowerment areas-as indicated by control of the local executive-are more active than the Hakkas living in low-empowerment areas. The methodology adopted in this study involves cross-tabulation analyses, ordered logit model, and logit model respectively. As the data show, the contextual effects of ”political empowerment” emerge as a statistically significant influence on improving the level of political participation of the minority group. As hypothesized, the results indicate that the Hakkas in high-empowerment areas tend to hold higher levels of political trust and voting participation, and vice versa. In the conclusion, we summarize the major findings and propose some research suggestions for further investigations.

Keywords

empowerment theory

ethnic politics

political attitude

voting participation