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Abstract

This study examines the shifts in voter turnout during Taiwan’s two referenda in 2018 and 2021, resulting from the transition from concurrent elections to separate ones. The research reveals a relationship between referendum turnout and the percentage of young voters when they are no longer held concurrently with general elections. In 2018, regions with a higher proportion of young voters experienced higher participation in referenda, whereas in 2021, areas with a lower percentage of young voters displayed increased turnout. Furthermore, even after controlling for the level of higher education among the population and the political party in power at the town levels, an inverse relationship between the proportion of young voters and turnout remained consistent. When referenda were decoupled from general elections, a higher percentage of young voters was associated with lower overall turnout, and the relationship between higher education and turnout was found to be insignificant. When comparing changes in turnout between cities not governed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a significant increase in turnout was observed in DPP-led areas in 2021. This suggests that when referenda were decoupled from general elections, the ruling party became more proactive in mobilizing voters. Furthermore, an analysis of approval votes indicates that higher turnout encourages more approval votes. However, in the context of reduced turnout during nonconcurrent elections, the proportion of approval votes also decreased accordingly.

Keywords

cost of voting
concurrent elections
referendum participation
voter turnout
youth population

Abstract

Taiwan's democratization has directly challenged the KMT's auth-oritarian political regime and induced polarized national indentity con-frontation. This phenomena has become a major force in party politics in Taiwan. This paper has adopted the suvery datd as a result of a special research project commissioned by National Science Com-mission in 1994 to be reference of analysis. It is carried out on the basis of independence v.s. unification attitude of the constituency, comparing several recent suvery data distribution on the independence v.s. unification issue, and analyzing social basis of independence v.s. unification attitude, eithnic identuty, suport for political party, politi-cal trust, orientation of democratic values, and participation in elec-tion etc. as well as the relations between these variables and indepen-dence v.s. unification attitude, so as to ascertain whether independence v.s. unification issue being the key variable in the process of Taiwan's political democratization.

Keywords

Independence v.s. unification
Ethnic identity
Support for political party
Political trust
Orientation of democratical values
Participation in election

Abstract

Mortality is a problem when it exits differential loss of respondents during our panel studies. By examining the 1990 - 1992 NES panel studies, I demonstrate that there were significant differences between the panel sample and the mortality sample on their political interest, political knowledge, and political participation. Mortality undermines the external validity when our research interest is to describe the political interest, political knowledge, and political participation of the mass public.When the selection process correlates with some variables in our model, mortality also undermines the internal validity of our research. I demonstrate that we will underestimate the importance of the respondent's age and his /her interest on newspaper on explaining his /her voting participation when we have the mortality problem in our panel studies. When we want to explain the importance of incumbent advantage, mortality makes us overestimate the importance of Democrat's incumbency and underestimate the importance of Republican incumbency.Participating in panel studies is a function of the respondent's interest and attitudes toward surveys. We shall always keep this in mind since the respondent's cooperation is the key point for the success of survey research. As the nonresponse rate increases in most surveys, social scientists have the obligation to make our interview more pleasant for our respondents.

Keywords

internal validity
external validity
mortality
panel studies
political participation
survey research

Abstract

It has been said that the 2000 presidential election in Taiwan was unpredictable before the result coming out at March 18. This paper tries to look at the relationships between voters' campaign interest, traditional media use, new media use (call-in, Internet use), political efficacy, and level of campaign participation. It has been hypothesized that those variables could predict Taiwan voters' voting behavior. Communication scholars have long been debating the role of the media in the politicalprocess and democratic system. The rising of the new media, call-in program especially, was widely discussed by political communication scholars as a tool to attract those voters who might not be interested in politics or voting. Whether voters' new media use could predict their campaign participation as well as the candidate they're supporting? The result had found that level of campaign participation was very high in the 2000 Taiwan presidential election. Gender, education, income, and campaign interest showed significant power in predicting voter's campaign participation. While traditional media use could not show significant relationships with participation, exposure to TV call-in program and TV debates did show high pre- dictive power in explaining voters' level of campaign participation.

Keywords

Media Use
Participation
Voting Behavior

Abstract

In Taiwan, researchers and scholars widely use survey data to conduct research analysis, construct theories and test hypotheses. However, problems came from process of data collection seldom been noticed. From the perspective of survey research methodolo-gy, this paper examined people’s attitudes on survey participation in Taiwan between 1986 and 1998. This research showed that, in Tai-wan, people became less likely to participate in survey interview even political environment became more democratic and open in the last decade. Among people who did not participate in survey, one quarter of them can not be reached by interviewers, and one out of four can be reached but refused to participate in survey. Worthy to be noticed is that the ratio of “refuse to be interviewed” increased gradually. Compared with survey on “election studies”, sur-vey topic on “relation between Taiwan and Mainland China” re-ceived higher refuseal rate. The paper indicated that the response rate of sensitive questions was influenced by respondents’ demo-graphic background and level of information they had. Men, youths, mainlanders, high-educated and party identifiers were more likely to answer the sensitive question-whom did you vote for- in this research. Type of elections also playd a role on re-sponse rate. In the survey on presidential election and gubernator-rial/mayoral election, nonresponse rates on reporting preferential candidates were lower than nonresponse rates in legislative elec-tions. Therefore, the difference of electoral system between sin-gle member district and SNTV might affect nonresponse rates. Several methodological suggestions are also presented for future sur-vey participation research.

Keywords

survey research
methodology
survey participation
non respondent
sensitive question

Abstract

This study used a national survey of college students in Taiwan to examine the relationship between media perceptions, media behaviors and political consequences, including political participation and internal political efficacy. Findings of this study indicated that college students' perceptions of media utility determines their media use, which in turn affects their political participation and internal political efficacy. Furthermore, college students' media self-efficacy leads to media participation, which further determines their political participation and internal political efficacy.

Keywords

Media utility perception
Media efficacy
Media use
Media participation
Internal political efficacy
Political participation

Abstract

This study examines the theoretical linkages of political participation of (ethnic/racial) minority groups. Instead of the perspectives of ”socioeconomic model” and ”psychological factor” developed in preceding literature, this research employs ”empowerment theory” of minority politics to account for the levels of political trust and voting participation of the Hakkas in the 2001 county magistrate/city mayoral elections in Taiwan. Using the 2001 Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study (TEDS 2001) survey data, we examine whether the Hakkas in high-empowerment areas-as indicated by control of the local executive-are more active than the Hakkas living in low-empowerment areas. The methodology adopted in this study involves cross-tabulation analyses, ordered logit model, and logit model respectively. As the data show, the contextual effects of ”political empowerment” emerge as a statistically significant influence on improving the level of political participation of the minority group. As hypothesized, the results indicate that the Hakkas in high-empowerment areas tend to hold higher levels of political trust and voting participation, and vice versa. In the conclusion, we summarize the major findings and propose some research suggestions for further investigations.

Keywords

empowerment theory
ethnic politics
political attitude
voting participation

Abstract

Classical democratic theory hypothesizes that good citizens should have highly interests in politics, be rational, and hold their own opinion in each issue or public affairs. But in the real political world, political scientists were depressed by empirical findings that people know very little about politics. However, it is very important for maintaining a democratic system that individuals are familiar with the process of political institutions, and have essential knowledge in political affairs. In this paper, we demonstrated that political knowledge among the electorate in Taiwan did increase. There are nearly 25% know nothing at all in 1992 on political factual questions, but there are only 5% did in 2000. Meanwhile, the level of political knowledge also affects one's response on political attitude questions obviously. The low informed inclined to express they did not hold any opinions on the questions. Besides, in our models, education, sex, the span of reading newspaper, and the span of watching television have significant influence on the level of public political knowledge. Male, better education, and spent much time in reading newspapers will be more informed. Informed voters also tend to participate more.

Keywords

political knowledge
political sophistication
political participation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the outcomes of surveys throughout the past decade, as well as to evaluate the survey process. The results of this evaluation will be helpful for developing better research designs and methods in order to continue advancement in the field of survey implementation. The outcome rate in ESC surveys indicates that people in Taiwan are reluctant to comply with interview requests and tend to decline to be interviewed-response rates remained below the 40% mark for the entire decade. Increasing the contact rate did not result in more cooperation from respondents, as the response rate actually fell over the same time period. In addition, refusal rates increased significantly. Also notable is that among the six categories of reasons for failure, the proportion of refusals has increased, while other failures have decreased as a consequence of ESC's efforts to improve fieldwork methods. The data also indicate that males, young people (under the age of 40), and people with lower levels of education (without senior high school degree) were under-counted in almost every ESC survey. Results of a short questionnaire administered to respondents in the refusal samples of the 2000 ISVB survey show that it is possible that some people were still afraid to express their political beliefs in Taiwan. The results also indicate that participants and non-participants differed in age, education, ethnicity, party preference and unification- independence stance.

Keywords

survey
survey participation
non-response
survey process
survey quality

Abstract

In the argument of classic democratic theories, active political discussion is one of the motives for crafting democracy. By applying the data of 2004 TEDS, this study attempts to explore three questions: (1) who will be the major discussants when people urge advices? (2) how people discuss political issues within their social networks; (3) how political discussions affect voting participation. There are several findings. First, the social networks of the married people are based on family members, including spouse, parents, children, brothers, and sisters. In contrast, sources of the unmarried people's social networks are mainly from parents and friends. Second, the married people are more interested in discussing political issues than the unmarried people. This maybe due to the life cycle effect. According to the literature, the elder or married people will pay much attention to public affairs. In addition, most people are likely to choose their discussants who share consistent political opinions. Finally, the pressures or encouragements brought by political discussions impose significant effects on voting participation, although the extent of their influences depends on different cases. In conclusion, this study suggests that the data collected by panel studies are necessary for further research.

Keywords

social networks
political discussion
cross pressure
voting participation

Abstract

This study applies 2003 Taiwan Social Change Survey data to examine gender differences in political participation and possible explanations. The major explanations for gender differences in political participations are two: first, women are less politically active due to women's incapable of participation. Men and women locate in different social status or face different private situations, in return, they own different participatory resources and conditions. Secondly, women are less willing to participate; because of the socialization effect women are relatively passive in terms of political engagement. The gaps in recognition and attitude then translate into political behaviors. Recent studies in political participation have gradually changed focus from resource-and-condition to recognition-and-attitude. This primary analysis also finds that the cause of gender difference in political participation lies less in resource-and-condition and more in recognition-and-attitude. However, resource-and-condition and recognition-and-motivation are not independent factors, individual motivation for political participation are shaped and constrained by his/her resources and conditions. This study thither applies path analysis to untangle the different impacts of various factors, to see how they interactively directly and indirectly deeply and slightly influence gender differences in political participation.

Keywords

gender difference
political participation
social structure
private situation
political engagement

Abstract

Popular dissatisfaction with two mainstream parties has been a significant phenomenon in Taiwan. By applying the concept of anti-party sentiment, this study attempts to explore the following questions: (1) what is the percentage of anti-party sentiment? (2) who are the citizens with anti-party sentiment? (3) what are political consequences led by antiparty sentiment? To measure anti-party sentiment, the author designs four variables concerning political corruption, election fairness, leadership, and representation. Totally 1,208 samples are collected from the telephone interview.There are several findings. First, most people are dissatisfied with the performances of political parties, except for leadership. Second, demographic characteristics for people with anti-party sentiment include young age, high education, white collar, and city inhabitant. Third, anti-party sentiment exerts negative effect on political participation and democratic satisfaction. On the contrary, anti-party sentiment doesn't show significant effect on party legitimacy and democratic support. Above findings imply that the case of Taiwan is similar with most western democracies. Although anti-party sentiment could be treatedas an important phenomenon in Taiwan, it might not jeopardize Taiwan democracy.

Keywords

anti-party sentiment
political participation
party legitimacy
democratic support
democratic satisfaction

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the political-communication effects of televised debates on voters in election contexts. In Taiwan, televised debates are still an emerging political-communication tool and an underresearched topic. The major research question in this paper is does televised debates increases voters' turnout intentions and other forms of political participations. Additionally, compared with previous studies which only focused on the impact of the use of different media on election participations, the current papers further discuss the audience's effectiveness evaluations on televised debates and identification with the medium through which the debates are held. Specifically, this paper focuses on first-time voters and conducts an experiment to compare the political-communication effects between voters who watched televised debates of the 2012 presidential election and voters who did not. Results show that watching televised debates can increase voters' issue-related election knowledge. Furthermore, there is a higher possibility for voters who watched televised debates to change their voting target. For medium-evaluation effects, voters who watched debates generate more favorable impact on medium-effectiveness evaluations and medium identification. Finally, voters' long-term political interests, political participation, medium dependence, and TV usage habits moderate the political-communication effects of televised debates. The research findings affirm the positive role of televised debates in political elections and provide related theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords

televised debates
political communications
election participations
first-time voters

Abstract

Most of the studies indicate that one of the advantages for social capital is it can stimulate democratic development. At the individual level, one's political interest, political knowledge and citizen skill can be brought up through participating in the communities. However, there is no consensus on whether women use their social capital in the same way as men. This study thus attempts to focus on the relationship between community participation and political engagement for the gendering social capital in Taiwan. With the empirical data analysis used in this study, we have two findings as the follows. First, regardless of the gender, people who involve in a community will engage more positively in civic and traditional political activities. Secondly, by classifying the observations according to the social status (high/ low) and their main living area (public/private sphere), we found that people, except those who have high social status and live in the public sphere, will have the same pattern of spending social capital in political engagement when they possess the same social status and have the same main living area. In other words, gender is not the main explanation of the difference in using social capital within the traditional political engagement.

Keywords

social capital
community participation
gender division
political engagement
civic engagement

Abstract

Much has been made about the “coming of age” of many Taiwanese young and new voters as an important factor contributing to the gratifying electoral result of the DPP and its pan-Green allies. The Taiwanese case, then, may be considered an aberration as the increased political activism among the younger Taiwanese voters stands in some contrast to the supposed apathy of their counterparts in the Western world. Indeed, this particular generation of young Taiwanese voters may have been “politicized” so much so that they are also easily “mobilized.” In this paper, we examine whether Taiwanese new voters are indeed politicized and whether their politicization translates to voting intentions. Using longitudinal TEDS surveys to detect common patterns of first-time voters’ voting behavior, preliminary results from our multivariate analysis indicate that first-time voters are not different in likelihood of participating in voting compared to other voters. The subtle difference, however, resides on the viable options with which these young cohorts can identify. This can be part of the reason they are more supportive of the new parties than merely the traditional parties.

Keywords

young voters
participation
voting behavior
mobilization
firsttime voters