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Abstract

Past literature suggests that the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) electoral system used in multi-member districts places great emphasis on selecting candidates over parties. However, given the diverse and interrelated attributes of local politicians, this study uses county councilor elections as an example and employs online surveys combined with conjoint experimental design to effectively distinguish which personal attributes are more important to voters when choosing among candidates. On the other hand, while the positive partisanship represented by party identification still has explanatory power, the impact of “negative partisanship” on voting choices has recently received considerable attention. Therefore, when making voting choices, the interactive effect of whether voters have negative partisanship and what their personal preferences for candidates are is the focus of this study.
This study found that the preferred personal attributes of local representatives in the minds of most Taiwanese voters are younger age, political experience, no involvement in corruption, local residency, and higher education. However, the study also found that negative partisanship still makes most voters sensitive to the party label of local representatives, rather than just voting based on preferred personal attributes. Some voters may even vote for candidates deemed corrupt. Additionally, among voters with no specific party preference, the proportion of those who dislike the pan-green camp is higher than those who dislike the pan-blue camp, which should be a warning for the current ruling party. This study provides inspiration for the nomination strategies of political parties in local elections. By understanding the expectations of different party-affiliated groups, parties can put forward candidates who cater to the preferences of the public, which can promote more active participation of the public in local elections.

Keywords

conjoint experimental design
single non-transferable vote system
party identification
negative partisanship
anti-party sentiment

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.

Keywords

Political party
Party identification
Measurement
KMT
DPP
NP
Voting behavior

Abstract

The influence of partisan factor in electoral choice under the SNTV system has not been well understood and systematically studies in the past. Conventional wisdom suggests that an SNTV system tends to induce candidate-centered campaign and to suppress the importance of partisan consideration. The paper argues that partisan factor may be brought into voters' decision-making in many different ways. In some cases, it serves as a screening factor, in other cases, it is the dominant factor as voters are willing to follow their party's instruction under a vote-eqalizing scheme. This paper identifies four different modes of electoral choice according to the impact of partisan factor on voting behavior. The analytical framework is a preliminary trial based on the islandwide survey data of the 1991 election for the National Assembly.

Keywords

Voting behavior
Partisan vote
Taiwan
National assembly
SNTV
Partisanship
Party identification

Abstract

Accurate forecast of elections is an exciting challenge for every student of electoral behavior. The aim of this article is to apply a model developed by Kelley and Mirer (1974) to the forecast of elections in Taiwan. Three models -- a "revised Kelley & Mirer model," "Candidate-oriented model," and "party-oriented model" are tested by applying data collected by the Election Study Center at the Chengchi University in three different elections. The tests indicate that the revised model is not as powerful as the author expected. Performance of other two models are not stable either. These results imply that in forecasting election we need not only individual level data, we also need to examine the macro environmental factors before we pick an appropriate model for the job.

Keywords

Forecast of elections
Candidate evaluation
Party identification

Abstract

Prior to the 1995 Legislative elections, the only party which could equalize the vote was the KMT. Because KMT could reduce the cost of winning a seat, it was always overrepresented. Although the opposition parties did not have strong grass-root organizations, they still looked for other ways to equalize the vote to prevent underrepresentation. In the 1995 elections, the New Party (NP) used a new method (forced vote distribution) to equalize their vote in Taipei City, Taipei County and Taoyuan County. This method enabled 12 of their 14 candidates to win. Why was the NP able to use forced vote distribution in the election? Did all nominees in a particular district winning seats mean the forced vote distribution had been effective? In this paper, I discuss the policy making procedure and the factors that influence the effect of the forced vote distribution. Finally, I give some advice to the parties that will use this campaign strategy in the future.

Keywords

Multi-member district
Single non-transferable vote
Vote distribution
Party identification
Campaign strategy
Nomination errors

Abstract

The conventional approach of measuring party identification is applicable to political systems in which (1) the electoral competition is mainly between two major parties, (2) both parties are established and entrenched, (3) the electoral system is stable. To gauge party identification in a multi-party setting or in an early stage of election and party development, a modified and novel scheme is required. This article takes the vote choice as the starting point to gauge the sentiment of support among the Hong Kong electorate towards the political parties. An elector's vote choice is cross-checked by a number of other factors in order to ascertain the strength of the support. Through such a multiple step scheme, the approximate proportion of political party supporters among the Hong Kong electorate in the first two legislative elections held respectively in 1991 and 1995 can be estimated. Thus, the scheme can be a feasible one to substitute political party identification for the sake of gauging and measuring the relationship between voters and paties in the early stage of electoral development in a particular territory.

Keywords

Party identification
Party support
Vote choice
Electoral system
Hong Kong elections

Abstract

I demonstrated change and continuity of party identification among the electorate in Taiwan by examining longitudinal survey data, and exploring factors affected people's party identification among different political generations. It was shown that voters among three generations had stable partisan affiliation toward the KMT in 1992, 1995, and 1998.Voters among elder generations had more stable party identification than voters among younger generation. As to the DPP supporters, the proportions increased continuously between 1992 and 1998, but the proportion of the DPP supporters was the lowest among voters of elder generation. When people's ethnic backgrounds were considered, I find that the distribution of the KMT identifiers was very stable among Taiwanese(Min-nan-jun),and the proportion of the DPP supporters among Taiwanese increased continuously. However, two new parties, i. e., the DPP and the NP, were less likely to attract first-generation Taiwanese. Few second-generation Taiwanese preferred the NP, but they were more likely to support the DPP than the KMT in 1998. Among Taiwanese, third-generation voters were more likely to support the NP. As to mainlanders, there were more than 80% of them identified themselves as the KMT partisans, the proportion decreased to 40% in 1995 but it rebounded to 60% in 1998.The proportion of the DPP partisans among mainlanders was less than 5% between 1992 and 1998.The proportion of the NP identifiers fluctuated dramatically among mainlanders between 1995 and1998. As to voters among three political generations, I demonstrated that Chinese identity was an important factor to determine first-generation voters' KMT identification. First-generation voters decided their DPP identification by their Taiwan-independence stance. As to voters among second generation, their stances on the issue of unification with mainland China versus Taiwan independence tended to determine whether they identified themselves as KMT or as DPP partisans. As voters among third generation, they were more likely to employ their Taiwan-independence stance and Taiwanese identity to decide whether they want to support the DPP.

Keywords

Party Identification
Political Generation
Party System

Abstract

Two major parties in Taiwan,KMT and DPP,have implementedpublic opinion survey as the formal mechanism for their candidate selections.The employment of public opinion survey in the process of candidate selection is based on two hypotheses:(1)the usage of opinion surveymay narrow down the gap between the”party will”and the”public opinion”,(2)the usage of opinion survey may reduce the influence of”nominalparty members”.This paper examines the candidate selection process ofDPP in 1998 Legislative Yuan Election,and demonstrates that none ofthe hypotheses above are true.Moreover,when the public opinion surveywas applied for the candidate selection,the most important function ofthe political party will be shrunk.

Keywords

Independent Voters
Party Identification
Political Involvement
The Degree of Media Exposion
Political Knowledge
Political Trust
The Perspection of the Value of Democracy
Candidate Image
Party Image
Pol

Abstract

Taiwan's party system has experienced dramatic change since the 2000 presidential election. The linkage between the electorate and political parties has also been reshuffled. Based on face-to-face interview data and focus group interview data, this article intends to explore voter's party identification and party image after the 2000 election. These data indicate that plural majority of the electorate have identified themselves with the Democratic Progressive Party. There are also different social bases among the three major parties. Secondly, the contents of party image among the electorate are multifaceted. They include both positive and negative attitudes toward the parties' past performance and future expectation. Furthermore, the electorates' party image is affected by their own partisanship. Lastly, this article confirms the utilities of combining face- to-face interview and focus group interview in the study of crucial concepts in political science.

Keywords

Party identification
Party image
Face-to-face interview
Focus group interview

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss whether the evaluation of economic condition in electorate influences the voting choice. The election in Taiwan, with the bad economic condition, do the economic voting exist? When the electorate evaluate that the economic performance is bad, will they punish the ruling party by their votes? We will discuss the relation between the evaluation of economic conditions and voting choices, attributive theory and the heterogeneity of economic voting. From the discovery of this article, there is obvious difference between personal and national evaluation of economic conditions and voting choices. In the multinomial voting model, the economic evaluation that affects the voting choices is not the main factor. Therefore, by using attributive theory and sample choosing, I find some electorate who has the economic voting character. But in the testing of the heterogeneity of economic voting, political trust and the national economic evaluation don't exist the interaction. The effect of economic evaluation to the voting decision doesn't be affected by political trust. We can know that there is heterogeneity in the economic voting of Taiwan electorate. However, what kind of variable causes the effect is the main continuous issue.

Keywords

economic voting
heterogeneity
attribution theory
party identification
political trust

Abstract

The concept and measurement of party identification have been an played an important role on explaining voting behavior in Taiwan's election studies, and it also helped to accumulate numerous research. However, it is arguable to apply this concept to explain the one-party dominant system before the 1980s and multiple party system after the 1980s in Taiwan, because whether voters can formulate "stable" identification toward a party as this concept was define in the United States needs ti be explored. therefore, we can find different variants, i. e. , party identification, partisan preference, party support, partisan orientation, partisanship, and party membership, when schlars tried to apply this construct to explain people's voting behavior, but which one is better to fit in Taiwan's electoral politics remained to be sorted out. In this study, we wmploy focus group research to explore voter' parties in people's mind. We demonstrate what people think about political parties and we believe this might be a better way to clarify the concept of party identification and improve its application in the electorral studies in Taiwan.

Keywords

party identification
partisan preference
party image
focus group

Abstract

As Abramson (1983: 135) noted: Next to party identification, no political attitude has been studied more extensively than feelings of political effectiveness. In this study, I employ longitudinal data to explore the political efficacy in Taiwan, placing emphasis on the changing pattern, and demonstrate the factors influencing this attitude from 1998 to 2003, before and after the alternation of power. From our findings, first, we showed the distribution of Taiwanese political efficacy. The internal efficacy was relatively stable for this period, but the decreasing trend has appeared. On the other hand, the external efficacy increased after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the 2000 presidential election. It means that the feelings of government responsiveness grow up after the alternation of ruling party in Taiwan. However, the decline of internal efficacy has shown that the mass public still think the politics was too complicated to understand. Second, I demonstrate some factors influencing the internal efficacy and external efficacy. The former indicated the political orientation of personal political competence for long terms. The Empirical result showed that the affected factors and coefficient direction were relatively similar over time. The latter, however, was influenced by social groups, included the ethnic backgrounds, party identification and the independence/unification issue positions. In addition, we tried to explain the theorical linkage between internal efficacy and external efficacy. That provides some possible suggestions in future studies.

Keywords

political efficacy
internal efficacy
external efficacy
alternation of ruling party
party identification
Taiwan independence vs. unification issue

Abstract

The major purpose of this article is to examine the measurement of party identification in the Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study (TEDS) from the perspectives of intransitivity and multidimensionality. Furthermore, an index of blue-green party difference is constructed to measure the voters' relative preference between the pan-blue camp and the pan-green camp in order to better account for their voting decision. It is found that the measurement of party identification in TEDS is successful with regard to the transitivity assumption. The fact that more than twenty percent of respondents share the highest score for the major parties indicates the presence of multidimensionality in this measurement. Last, it also empirically demonstrated that the index of blue-green party difference is a better measure because of its evident transitivity and its stronger statistical association with voting decision.

Keywords

party identification
transitivity
multidimensional measurement

Abstract

Since the direct presidential election was held in Taiwan 12 years ago, for the first time a significant voting gender gap appeared in the 2008 presidential election. Women voters supported candidate Ma which boosted him winning the president election. This study attempts to explore why there was such a substantial gender gap in that election. To explain the gender gap, we first compared the factors in explaining voting decision-candidate evaluation, issue positions, socioeconomic factors, and party identification, to see if gender gap exists in these factors. Furthermore, we applied the logit models to examine whether gender differences in these factors lead to voting gender gap. The models show that although gender gaps were evident on voters' candidate evaluation, party identification, some issue positions and socioeconomic conditions, not all of these differences translated into voting gender gaps. Gender differences in party identification remained the strongest factor in explaining gender difference in voting choices. Comparatively, the voting gender gap caused by party identification is evident in that women were less likely to identify with pan-Green party, and pan-Green women might vote across their party line. We further examine respectively the interaction between voters' party identification and candidate factor, and the interaction between voters' party identification and issue evaluation. The results show that candidate factor is not the underlying factor linking the gender gap in party identification and voting gender gap. But the distance of issue positions between voters and parties/candidates on social welfare and environment might explain why women voters identify differently from men with parties and how these differences transfer into voting gender gaps.

Keywords

gender gap
Ma's effect
party identification
issue position
candidate evaluation

Abstract

This research utilizes the 2004-2008 panel data to examine the stability and change of party identification among Taiwanese voters. Several findings are worth highlighting: First, individuals' present party identification is affected by previous party identification, as well as evaluations on the parties and political elites, and issue positions. This shows that party identification of Taiwanese voters is affected by both forces of stability and change. Second, the effect of the previous party identification on the present party identification is different across generations: it is the largest on the first generation, the second on the second generation, and the smallest on the third generation. Third, 61.3 percent of voters continue their party identification. For those who change their party identification, most of them are from a small party to a large party. Also noteworthy is when they change their party identification, they change according to the blue-green boundary. Therefore, I argue that the blue-green dimension, or the KMT-DPP dimension, based on the ethnic groups and independence-unification issue, is the target of party identification. This is based on experiences of political socialization when voters first entered into the political arena. Furthermore, this blue-green dimension is possibly reinforced by the new electoral system. Therefore, under the circumstance that the electoral system stabilizes and no new issue emerges, the party identification of Taiwanese voters helps to shape a two party system.

Keywords

party identification
party preference
party system
panel data
political generations

Abstract

This study aims to examine the dispute within literature concerning independent voters, differentiate independent voters in Taiwan, and therefore explore factors affecting their vote choices. Through analysis of the data from Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study, 2008 (TEDS2008P): Presidential Election, the preliminary findings are as follows: first, there are at least three major disputes in the literature, including the conceptualization and typology of independent voters, the measurement and operationalization of independent voters, and the explanation of why and how people become independent voters. Second, there is indeed a substantial distinction between pure independents and independent leaners in Taiwan. Third, short-term party preference and the overall evaluation of candidates are the two most significant factors affecting independents' vote choices. In addition, retrospective voting exerts different level of effect on these two independents. Specifically, while satisfaction with the incumbent plays more important role on independent leaners than on pure independents, overall evaluation of candidates seems to affect pure independents more than its counterpart. The explanatory power of party preference, however, is uniform to both kinds of voters.

Keywords

pure independents
independent leaners
party identification
retrospective voting

Abstract

According to The American Voter, party identification affects voters' attitudes, feelings, even the voting behavior towards political parties. In Taiwan, party identification indeed has fundamental effects on voters' voting behavior. But there is still something that can't be explained. This study found that negative identification against a specific party is also a crucial factor that affects voters' voting behavior. The negative attitude towards a specific party is a long-term, consistent attitude. And it is very hard to change.The study employed methods including in-depth interviews, focus groups and telephone survey to investigate the issue. First, results from qualitative research indicated that three factors, namely, national identity, ethnic identity and party image are the roots of the voters' negative attitude toward a specific party. The study also developed a questionnaire to measure the negative attitudes toward a specific party of the voters in Taiwan; 46.3% of the survey respondents expressed that there is one or more than one parties they would have never voted for. We then combined the traditional party identification variable and the newly-developed ”which party that you will never vote for” variable into a new party identification indicator. Empirical studies using survey data showed that the new variable were good in both validity and reliability tests and was doing very well in explaining voters' voting behavior in Taiwan.

Keywords

party identification
negative party identification against a specific party
new party identification variable

Abstract

This study examines whether people's interpersonal relationship and social environments are important resources, which affect individuals' opinion expressions. Different from the approaches such of ”socio-demographic factors” and ”political mobilization” in the existing literature on political participation, this study uses ”cross-pressures” as its theoretical framework, analyzing the influence posed by cross-pressures on persons' inclination to express their own political opinions in the 2008 Legislative Yuan elections. The cross-pressures might be especially salient when their political positions are different from those of their family members. We employ the 2008 Taiwan Election and Democratization Study (TEDS 2008) survey data, using ”cross-tabulation analyses” and ”multinomial logit models” to investigate the association between four-type respondents and political expressions. Note that the variable of ”party identification” is employed as the proxy for tapping the concept of political expression. The findings reveal that the variables of gender, age, ethnicity, Taiwanese/Chinese consciousness, unification/independence preference, cross-pressures, and four-type respondents are the significant factors associated with an individual’s expression of party identification, and most of them run in the expected directions. More importantly, some respondents refuse to express their real partisan preferences and therefore report themselves as ”independents” during face-to-face interviews when they are under social interactions with cross-pressures. The results confirm the major hypothesis of this research: individuals having homogeneous social interactions and under low-level cross-pressures are predisposed to talk about politics, while people in cross-pressures involving greater political disagreement are less likely to express their political preferences.

Keywords

interpersonal network
cross-pressure
opinion expression
party identification

Abstract

This article examines across-strait trade openness and vote choices in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. We first demonstrate two trends about economic assessments in the 2008 and 2012 elections. First, more and more people consider the economic effect of economic openness as neutral. Next, respondents decouple their assessments in the aggregate level and family level. While a substantial percentage of voters still think that economic openness has been bringing about economic prosperity for Taiwan, it has not done so at the family level. As to the effect of economic assessment, we find that the traditional economic voting battery does not exert comparable effect on voting as economic openness. Next, the socio-tropic assessment of economic openness is relatively more important than the pocket-book assessment. More importantly, we demonstrate how political identities, party identification and unification-independence choice, shape the influence of economic assessment on voting decisions. In general, economic assessments exert greater effects on pan-blue and pro-unification voters, while exert smaller effects on pan-green and pro-independence voters. This pattern is mainly associated with the extent that incoming messages are congruent with voters' existing beliefs.

Keywords

economic voting
cross-strait economic openness
party identification
unification-independence choice
presidential election

Abstract

In 2008 presidential election, Taiwan for the first time appeared a significant gender gap in voting; in 2012 presidential election, the first female presidential candidate arose to challenge the incumbent. To compare the changes between these two elections, this study uses ”Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study (TEDS)” panel data (2008P-2012) to observe the stability/change and the patterns of gender gap among the same set of voters. The analysis shows that women voters are more likely than men to change their votes from the KMT candidate to the DPP candidate. The transferring pattern of women voters accounts for the shrink of the voting gender gap comparing to the last election. In terms of the explanation for the voting change, we compare three factors, the party identification, candidate evaluation and issue effect. All of these three factors affect voting decisions to different extent, but in explaining gender difference of the voting change, only the candidate factor is significant. Voting change is mainly due to the female voters with stable party identification, transferring their votes from the KMT to DPP candidate. Among those female voters, some of them are stable DPP supporters who voted for Ma in the 2008 election and returned to vote for DPP candidate Tsai, and still some are stable KMT supporters who cross their party line to vote for their preferred DPP candidate Tsai. Comparing these two presidential elections with panel data, we can conclude that men are more likely to stick to their party identification in casting their ballots, whereas women are more likely to be influenced by other factors besides party identification. And this time, the other factor is the candidate. For those female voters who give the DPP candidate higher evaluation, voting transfer is a natural result.

Keywords

gender gap
female presidential candidate
party identification
candidate factor
issue voting
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