Journal of Electoral Studies

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Political Trust and Voting Behavior in Taiwan

Lu-Huei Chen
2002 / 11
Volume 9, No.2

pp.65-84
10.6612/tjes.2002.09.02.65-84
Paper

Abstract

In this paper, we employ longitudinal data to explore the change and continuity of political trust among the electorate in Taiwan. After the 2000 presidential election, whether the distribution of political trust will follow the rotation of ruling power is our research interest. We also would like to explore which factors affect people's political trust, and how political trust might affect people's voting behavior. By employing 1992, 1995, 1998, and 2001 face-to face interviews after legislative elections, we are able to explore the change and continuity of people's political trust in Taiwan. From our findings, we showed that the distribution of people's political trust declined during 1992 and 1998. However, as the 2001 survey data showed, people's political trust rebounded after the 2000 presidential election. Among factors affected people's political trust, people's partisan preference toward the KMT, voters among the first generation, people with elementary school education were more likely to have higher level of political trust between 1992 and 1998. However, people with the DPP or the NP partisan preference were more likely to have lower level of political trust. After the 2000 presidential election, people with the DPP partisan preference changed their level of political trust, and became more likely to trust the ruling authorities. We also demonstrated that people with higher level of political trust were more likely to support the ruling party in the legislative elections.

Keywords

Legislative elections

Political attitudes

Political trust

Voting behavior