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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 The Issue Taiwan Independence vs. Unification with the Mainland and Voting Behavior in Taiwan: An Analysis in the 1990s

The Issue Taiwan Independence vs. Unification with the Mainland and Voting Behavior in Taiwan: An Analysis in the 1990s

Shing-Yuan Sheng
2002 / 05
Volume 9, No.1

pp.41-80
10.6612/tjes.2002.09.01.41-80
Paper

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine how the issue Taiwan independence versus unification with the Mainland (hereinafter the TI-UM issue) affects Taiwan's politics through elections in the 1990s. To achieve this purpose, this article deals with three major issues. The first is to show how the TI-UM issue emerges and evolves in Taiwan's political arena. The second is to show how voters' position on the TI-UM issue affects their voting behavior, and how these effects differ across different elections. The third is to show what the determinants are and how the determinants affect voters' position on the TI-UM issue. This research focuses on five elections across different periods of time. They are gubernatorial and mayoral elections in 1994, legislator's elections in 1995 and 1998, and presidential elections in 1996 and 2000. The data used in this research are the post-election face-to-face interviews conducted by the Election Study Center in National Chengchi University.

Keywords

the issue Taiwan independence versus unification with the Mainland

party preference

political generation

ethnic identification

voting behavior