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Abstract
The Taiwan Provincial Council is the subject of this study. Based on the KMT's nomination strategy and election results in the two provincial councilor elections in 1972 and 1977, it revisits and revises the KMT's factional substitution policy of the 1970s. During the 1972 local elections, the KMT aggressively promoted factional replacement in the election of magistrates, mayors, and Taiwan Provincial Councilors. The KMT eliminated political figures with local factional backgrounds on a large scale in the name of promoting young talents. With respect to the Taiwan Provincial Councilors, the replacement was intended to eliminate Taiwan Provincial Councilors elected prior to 1968 in order to suppress the inter-county local faction that existed in the Taiwan Provincial Council at the time. Most Taiwan Provincial Councilors who had served for more than two terms were not re-elected, thereby generating a significant generational shift in the makeup of Taiwan Provincial Council. The KMT’s control over the Taiwan Provincial Council was thus strengthened. Despite a significant reduction in mobilization power due to the KMT's suppression of local factions, the party's political base was unaffected by the absence of a strong national opposition at the time. During the 1977 local elections, the KMT continued to suppress local factions while giving support to KMT members who had no factional background. The local factions were no longer as effective as they had been during the local elections in 1972. Except for a few counties and cities, no local factions abandoned the KMT, and their capacity for mobilization improved. However, factions outside the party successfully mobilized over 7% of new voters who had not voted previously. This resulted in unprecedented setbacks for the KMT, including the defeat of several Taiwan provincial councilors from local factions. Taiwan has since formed an opposition capable of mobilizing the entire country.
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
This paper attempts to re-conceptualize party identification in Taiwan's multiparty system and to measure it empirically with the 1995 national legislative election survey data provided by the Election Study Center, National Chengchi University. The traditional uni-dimensional measurement of identification on the KMT and the DPP came across a hurdle when the New Party was formed in 1993. The replacing measure-ment of three categories, together with three levels of strength for each category, presents as an alternative solution to the problem. However, this measurement does not take into account the voters who identify political parties negatively, and it may be remedied by a new three-dimensional measurement. As detailed in this paper, the new measure-ment is able to find roughly 16 percent of negative party identifiders, and to more accurately locate different types of party identification in a multi-dimensional setting.
Abstract
A study of strategies of newspaper advertising operated by three main political parties, Komingtang(KMT) , Democratic Pro-gressive Party(DPP) and Chinese New Party(CNP), in the 1995 leg-islators election of Taiwan was conducted, in which message perfor-mances including themes, visual factors and copy writing skill as well as media strategies, scheduling and vehicle selecting, were ex-amined. The study found that ── The main content of KMT's advertisments was the negatives. KMT tried to attack the other parties by advertising, but the visual and copy writing skill were poor. KMT also failed to present selling propositions in advertisements. In vehicle selecting, KMT used many kinds of newspapers to carry advertisements, but the newspa-pers of United Daily Group were excluded. In scheduling strategy, KMT launched all of the advertisements in the period of eleven days before the day of voting. The focus of DPP's advertising was the rebuilding of image, from sadness to happiness. With excellent visualization , yet the copy didn't stress a major idea clearly and didn't emphasize the voter's ultimate benefit──the needs of safety. DPP took a tactics of steady media scheduling and it limited on the vehicle selecting, in which no government-owned and KMT-owned newspapers were used. The tactics of CNP's advertising are image building and attack-ing opposers, KMT and DPP. Only the newspapers of United Daily Group and China Times Group were used to put out advertisements. Among these newspapers, CNP prefered the United Daily News and the United Evening News. It testified to the 'effect of context', namely a ideological matching between advertiser and media.
Abstract
The present study explores whether the geographic distribution of grants among counties and cities, offered by the Taiwan Provincial Government (TPG) from FY1988 to FY1995, is aiming at equalizing local finance or manipulating elections. Specifically, we ask if the size of grants during the election years is larger than non-election years? We also ask whether the decision regarding the distribution of grants made by the Taiwan Provincial Government is contingent upon the consideration of electoral success of the ruling party KMT? That is, under the command of the ruling party KMT, does the TPG offer disproportionate grants to the most vulnerable districts regardless of the objective needs?Briefly, statistical results show that the size of provincial grants during the election years is larger than non-election years. The results also show that the disproportionate provincial grants do flow to KMT's vulnerable districts in the election of the Taiwan Provincial Legislators and the election of county in chief and city mayor, but not in the election of Lawmakers of the Legislative Yuan. These findings suggest that, in addition to maintaining the KMT's partisan advantaged position, the TPG distributes disproportionate benefits to vulnerable districts based on political considerations of its own. First, the budget security of the TPG is dependent on the Taiwan Provincial Legislators. Thus, helping candidates of provincial legislators who are most vulnerable to be elected or reelected by distributing provincial grants to his or her districts may exchange future support of provincial legislators. Second, the TPG needs the cooperation of city government and county government in policy implementation. Hence, the TPG expect to bring partnership of local governments in the future if the TPG offers assistant expenditures for those incumbents of city mayor or county in chief who are most vulnerable in the election.Finally, although we find clear evidences of political manipulation in the distribution of Taiwan provincial grants, the objective criteria-capacity of self-financing still plays an important role in the decision of grant distribution. We find that the counties or cities with low capacity of self-financing receive more grants than those with high capacity of self-financing. In other words, electoral consideration may exist in the distribution of provincial grants, yet equalizing local finance is still not ignored in the decision process.
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to discuss whether the evaluation of economiccondition in electorate influences the voting choice.The election inTaiwan,with the bad economic condition,do the economic voting exist?When the electorate evaluate that the economic performance is bad,willthey punish the ruling party by their votes?We will discuss the relationbetween the evaluation of economic conditions and voting choices,attributivetheory and the heterogeneity of economic voting.From the discoveryof this article,there is obvious difference between personal and nationalevaluation of economic conditions and voting choices.In the multinomialvoting model,the economic evaluation that affects the votingchoices is not the main factor.Therefore,by using attributive theory andsample choosing,I find some electorate who has the economic votingcharacter.But in the testing of the heterogeneity of economic voting,politicaltrust and the national economic evaluation don't exist the interaction.The effect of economic evaluation to the voting decision doesn't beaffected by political trust.We can know that there is heterogeneity in theeconomic voting of Taiwan electorate.However,what kind of variablecauses the effect is the main continuous issue.
Abstract
In the year 2000, the first transfer of central political power in Taiwan, had a deep impact on and influenced not only the regional factions which had used to rely on the Kuo-Ming-Tang (KMT), but also had a bearing on the new government claimed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The point of view on local politics has changed. Local factions in Chang-hua County cannot depart from this impact either. The Hong-pai (red-faction) and the Bai-pai (white faction) the two main faction’s influence in Chang-hua County has been reduced. These two factions used to provide strong mobilizational ability in the said county. Due to fact that the regime they once served, did not continue to exist over a long period of time. A severe shortage of mobilization forced the Hong-pai and the Bai-pai to departmentalize their organizations and to individualize the mobilization. The research for this paper discovered that Chang-hua County has no comprehensive influence over regional factions at present, because politicians progressively have no collective spirit to identify with a particular faction. However, in order to win a local election victory or to strive for the allotment of abundant political and financial resources, politicians frequently tried to forge alliances. This has been brought about to dissolve the boundaries between factions, and factions are being pushed further out. Also, disruptions in the KMT in the past years, encourage them to establish party member's and the regional faction's identities. In other words, the disagreement among the KMT has decreased, while increasing within the DPP. As the DPP won the presidential election, cabinets not only master the authority of lower level governmental administration, but also step in on administrative matters. Competition and inconsistent policies between cabinets and regional factions gradually became more drastic. It is difficult to get away from the disagreement as the DPP won the election.
Abstract
During the authoritarian period, the typical organizational structure of clientelism was the pyramid shape. It provided several advantages for the clientelist elites and the KMT. The limited openness of electoral politics helped maintain the pyramid-shaped organizational structure of clientelism. The structure of broker organizations is one of the main factors shaping the mobilization capacity of clientelism. The better the brokerage organizational structure, the easier it is for patrons to mobilize brokers and clients. The more fragmented the brokerage organizational structure is, the more difficult it is for patrons to integrate them. Fully competitive electoral politics increases the competition among clientelist elites. The competition speeds the trend toward fragmentation of brokerage organizations. During the authoritarian period, local factions rarely supported more than one candidate at the same time in elections. Therefore, local factions did not face the coordination problems they would later face under the SNTV system. The KMT did encounter these coordination problems. On one hand, it used local factions to differentiate candidates. On the other hand, a certain amount of hard-core supporters helped the KMT divide votes optimally among its candidates. Fully competitive electoral politics gave clientelist elites an opportunity to access the state resources, which were no longer limited to the local level. However, under the Taiwanese specific electoral institution, Single Nontransferable Vote (SNTV) system, the new competitive politics not only increased inter-factional conflicts within the KMT, but also intra-factional conflicts. These intra-factional conflicts precipitated the breakdown of the factional organizational structure.
