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.

Public safety depends on a strong rule of law, efficient governance, and a capable military. Without these elements, trust erodes, and economic growth suffers. Despite its critical role in national security, research on political trust in the military, especially in democracies like Taiwan, is limited. Taiwan faces a unique security challenge from China, making trust in its military indispensable for deterrence and domestic stability. The 2022 Chinese military drills intensified tensions, underscoring the need for robust public trust to support defense policies and maintain civilian control over the military. This study explores the factors influencing public trust in the Taiwanese military in light of these recent developments. Statistical evidence suggests that four key factors play a role: public safety, the China threat, government trust, and democratic governance. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for formulating policies that bolster national security and public confidence in the military.

Recently, political scholars have examined the rise of minor parties through the lens of campaign strategies. However, researchers have yet to explore how minor parties garner voter support through political advertisements. Furthermore, scholars know less about how voters with different party preferences within similar political ideologies respond to minor party advertisements. Focusing on political advertisements of minor parties, this study examines the impact of prevalent emotional appeals (enthusiasm, pride, anger, hope, anxiety, and fear) in political ads on the party attitudes and voting intentions of voters with different party preferences. It integrates the affective intelligence theory and the emotional valence dimension (positive vs. negative) from the emotional dimension theory. With a one-factor-between-subjects experimental design, it manipulated the New Power Party’s (NPP) political ads to test the effectiveness of emotional appeals. The experimental results reveal that when voters’ party preferences are consistent with the advertised party (i.e., NPP supporters viewing NPP advertisements), the emotional appeals of enthusiasm and pride under the disposition system lead to more favorable party attitudes and voting intentions. Conversely, when voters’ party preferences are inconsistent with the advertised party (i.e., Democratic Progressive Party supporters viewing NPP advertisements), the emotional appeals of hope and anxiety under the surveillance system yield better effects. In contrast, the emotional appeals of hope and fear under the surveillance system are more effective for voters with no specific party preference. It fulfills the research gap in affective intelligence theory and broadens relevant theories of minor parties’ political marketing and emotional appeals. It also provides practical recommendations on how minor parties can design political advertisements.

This study attempts to unravel mnemonic manipulation in electioneering. The results of the 2018 nine-in-one election in Taiwan can be explained by the “Han tide” and its spillover effects, and so this study aims to decipher the emergence of the Han tide using a memory-studies approach. While admitting that other social factors played a role in the formation of the Han tide, this study suggests that four elements were found in Han’s electioneering: (re)defining the present as negative and (re)directing attention to the future, switching the commemorative focus from politics to economics, encouraging people to forget the political past and embrace the economic future, and employing an awakening narrative to evoke change. Moreover, four additional aspects were observed in the Han tide: canceling the challenges of counter-narratives by redirecting people’s attention, solving the issue of lacking a shared past with Kaohsiung City, downplaying and/or editing “out” the negative aspects of “our side,” and degrading the mnemonic framing and nostalgic capital of the Democratic Progressive Party. Although scholars of memory studies have shed light on politics in memory, this study argues that memory in politics should also be emphasized by investigating more empirical cases.

Changes in the political trust among Taiwanese students after visiting mainland China symbolize the effectiveness of the CPC’s political propaganda. This issue is critically related to the stability of Taiwan’s democratic polity and hence warrants the close attention of supporters of democracy from around the world. A total of 516 Taiwanese youth who visited mainland China on exchange programs were studied.  Four hypotheses were proposed by combining the theories of social contact, political socialization, and rational choice. The results show that after the students visited mainland China, the number of those with greater political trust in their home country was 13.46% higher than those with lower trust. The average change significantly increased by 0.06. All four hypotheses were supported by empirical evidence. After the cross-polity contact, students’ perceived hostility of the Communist Party of China was reduced, or they were more satisfied with the level of Taiwan’s democracy, or their evaluation of Taiwan’s industrial prospects were better, or they less willing to go to mainland China for career development, leading to greater trust in Taiwanese officials. This study makes a unique contribution to the literature by combining true-acquaintance contact and political mobilization to propose the perceived hostility hypothesis for changes in political trust.