home
Home
navigate_next
Search results
Search results
Abstract
This essay attempts first to re-conceptualize public's deep-seated am-bivalent feelings, thoughts and perceptions about the first Taiwanese President Lee as 'Lee Teng-hui complex' by refering the concept 'complex' back to analytical psychologist Carl Jung's original usage. Sec-ond, in the our empirical analysis Lee Teng-hui complex is then operationalized and measured as individual's positive-negative affect responses that taken to be off the top of the head while confronting in-formation related to President Lee. As shown in our multivariate analy-sis of electoral survey data, individual's ethnicity, education, and parti-sanship are significant predictors of Lee Teng-hui complex. Moreover, same as that of Taiwanese vs. mainlanders, KMT and NP identifiers are also found polarized in the measure of Lee Teng-hui complex. Among direct determinants of individual's partisan vote-choices, Lee Teng-hui complex is found only marginally significant, however, it is a major intervening variable in shaping individual's evaluation of candidates, issues and parties that lead to the final vote-choice making in both the 1994 Taiwan's Gubernatorial and Taipei Mayoral elections. This essay concludes that individual's ambivalent affect toward President Lee, com-monly termed 'Lee Teng-hui complex' in public discourse, has indeed served as the catalyst for the forming of the splinter New Party on the one hand, and it has only hollo-effect functioning as indirect factor in shaping individual's partisan vote-choices on the other.
Abstract
“Taiwan vs. China” complex has been taken as the major factor that draws partisan line between parties along the “Taiwan-independence and China-unification” stance on the one hand and influences vote-choice among Taiwanese and Mainlanders on the other. Yet, this linkage has not been explored empirically as far. According to symbolic politics theory, Taiwanese vote-choices are influenced more by political affect than self-interest. The paper argues that those political affect components, as shown either in determining individual’s vote-choices or in party’s strategy of electoral mobilization, can be effectively channeled down to this “Taiwan vs. China” complex. The paper recasts this culturally deep-seated concept by looking at its derivative psycho-political orientations, so-called “Taiwan vs. China” concern, which is measured by a cluster of affective-driven beliefs in Taiwan’s supremacy and/or concerns for China. Based on an analysis of post-electoral survey data of the 1998 and 2001 legislative elections, two-factor structure is found in the “Taiwan vs. China” concerns, and this polarized affect orientation serves as a link to relate socio-demographic characteristics to ethnic identification, national identity, party identification, independence-unification stance as well as to partisan vote-choice. Symbolic politics in Taiwan’s election is thus confirmed by individual’s affect-driven vote-choices. In sum, the paper concludes that the empirical import of “Taiwan-China complex” concept can be identified as two groups of political affect components around “Taiwan vs. China” concerns in a two second-order factor analysis.
