In a political campaign, candidates attempt to mobilize voters by using contributions from individuals, corporations, and political parties. It is an accepted fact of democracy that campaigns should attempt to outdo one another in both the amount they collect in contributions and what they spend on campaigns. Previous research has explored the incumbent advantage in campaign finance, but many interesting factors remain. For instance, is fund-raising aided by factors such as the closeness of an election or a candidate’s tenure in the Legislative Yuan? In this study, we explain campaign contributions using data from prediction markets and television news reports to account for variations in campaign spending. Our results suggest that incumbent advantage does indeed affect contributions and that DPP candidates outperformed other candidates in campaign finance. We also find that previous electoral margins and television news coverage contribute significantly to campaign donations, and that election betting has an impact on spending. These findings suggest that a political party’s general campaign can influence the election race of an individual candidate, and that contributors tend to bet on likely winners, deepening the influence of the electoral system on competing political parties.

Cognitive madisoniansim is crucial in political situations. It is not only an important value of democratic societies, but also a factor in explaining split-ticket voting. With the increase of minor parties and candidates, the media believe that Taiwan’s 2016 general elections have shown the most fierce split-ticket voting. It is worth mentioning that we shall not ignore the issue of endogeneity caused by partisanship when discussing the relationship between cognitive madisoniansim and split-ticket voting. Based on the panel data of TEDS2016, this study aims to recategorize the cognitive madisoniansim of the respondents and resolve the issue of endogeneity by applying a generalized structural equation model (GSEM). By doing so, we aim to examine the relationship between cognitive madisoniansim and splitticket voting.

The findings show that the public’s cognitive madisoniansim was indeed affected by party preference. DPP supporters have tended to support cognitive madisoniansim in the past. However, they stopped supporting it once the DDP took over the government. The KMT showed the opposite situation. They had been against cognitive madisoniansim in the past. When they began losing elections, they started to support it. Regarding voting decisions, cognitive madsoniansim has positive effects on people’s decisions about straight-ticket voting or split-ticket voting. Nevertheless, most voters who cast straight-ticket voting for the DPP are those who stopped supporting or constantly supported cognitive madisoniansim. These two groups of voters both prefer the DDP. This result indicates that the effect of voters’ cognitive madisoniansim on their voting behaviors still reflects their party preference. The above-mentioned issues present the endogeneity issue derived by explaining the split-ticket voting behaviors by cognitive madisoniansim and the inevitability of GSEM methods. We suggest that researchers not ignore the effect of party preference as they examine the relationship between cognitive madisoniansim and split-ticket voting.

A survey is designed to explore the participants’ opinions, attitudes and actions towards certain topics. The amount of information possessed by participants is not the only factor that influences their willingness to participate; question types and options design also influence participants’ responses. In reality, given cost constraints and questionnaire length, it is not feasible to provide a multiple survey design for a single concept, or to verify participants' response mode under different survey designs. This study used an experimental design to measure political knowledge from Taiwan’s Election and Democratization Study (TEDS) as an example, based on (1) an “open-ended vs. close-ended” question design; (2) whether it provides “non-response” as an option, to design four different types of surveys. The study uses a posttest-only control group design with university students as participants. We randomly released the questionnaires to participants and had 1,110 valid questionnaires.

The study found that question type and non-response design affects the participant response mode; a close-ended questionnaire design does increase the correct response ratio from participants, but it also produces a higher proportion of incorrect answers than an open-ended questionnaire. An openended questionnaire design does not have options as reference, and so it could lower the willingness of participants to take part in the survey, and it therefore resulted in a higher non-response ratio. From the composite design of question type and non-response option, we were able to precisely estimate types of participants as in Mondak (1999), but the combinations of different types of participants vary significantly as results from the level of difficulties in a questionnaire designed to measure political knowledge.

If China adopts economic, diplomatic, and military strategies toward Taiwan, do these strategies explain the differences in Taiwanese people’s image of China? Do these effects vary across different periods? Using “Image Theory” as the theoretical framework, we explore whether China’s provision of economic benefits, allowance of Taiwan’s diplomatic activities without restrictions, and removal of missiles targeting Taiwan contribute to the more favorable attitude of China among the Taiwanese public and subsequently shape their image of China. We further examine whether these policies had differing effects during the relatively positive cross-strait relations in 2014 compared to the strained relations in 2021. This study utilizes the 2014 and 2021 nationwide telephone surveys of Image of China and the “Ordered Logit Model” to analyze the correlations between the three policies and the image of China. Empirical findings reveal that in both years, individuals who felt more favorable toward China due to its provision of more significant economic benefits were also more likely to hold a positive image of China. However, China’s lack of restrictions on Taiwan’s diplomatic activities and removal of missiles targeting Taiwan failed to have any effect. The results suggest that offering economic benefits best explains the differences in Taiwanese people’s image of China. We conclude that because China has previously provided Taiwan with economic benefits, crossstrait economic ties remain challenging to decouple. Furthermore, under the premise of unification, economic benefits are the most feasible concession China can offer Taiwan, as it is unlikely to ease its diplomatic containment or military threats. Hence, economic benefits best explain the differences in Taiwanese perceptions of China.

This study aims to examine the variation in individuals’ approval of their national leaders during national crises. Previous studies indicate that international crises tend to increase citizens’ approval of governments and political incumbents. Such a sudden spike in public approval during times of crisis reflects the “rally-round-the-flag” effect. However, since the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, existing research on the rally effect has shown mixed results. While most studies have focused on singlecountry surveys, few utilize cross-national survey data. To fill the gap in the literature, this study uses cross-national panel survey data and adopts multilevel models to test hypotheses about rally effects in the COVID-19 crisis. The findings of this study are threefold. Firstly, individuals with a heightened fear of the pandemic were more likely to support their national leaders. Secondly, in countries with higher COVID-19 death tolls, citizens tended to exhibit greater support for their national leaders. Thirdly, in countries with more stringent policies to cope with the pandemic, citizens demonstrated higher levels of support for their national leaders. Overall, this study facilitates a better understanding of the rally-round-the-flag effect, and it also provides important policy implications for political behavior in times of crisis.