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Abstract

“Running for an office while holding another position” is common in Taiwanese elections, where incumbent politicians often engage in another campaign before the end of their term, aiming for higher-level political positions. This phenomenon has been discussed in several elections, sparking much debate during the campaigns. There are numerous studies focusing on the political promotion from the perspective of candidates, such as the promotion opportunities within the political structure and candidate campaign strategies. However, there are few studies that approach the issue from the perspective of voters, exploring how voters perceive the behavior of candidates who “run for office while holding another position.” This study selects three legislative elections from 2012 to 2020 as the observation targets and employs an experimental method of “conjoint analysis” through an online survey to analyze whether voters accept the behavior of politicians seeking upward promotion under different conditions. The results indicate that although the public generally holds negative views toward “running for office while holding another position,” it becomes an advantageous condition for candidates when considering various backgrounds of candidates. Compared to candidates without incumbent positions, respondents still prefer candidates with incumbent legislative status. This suggests that although “running for office while holding another position” is negative label to candidates, it still represents that candidates possess a certain level of political experience. The positive effects of latter outweigh the negative effects of the former for voters.

Keywords

conjoint analyze
candidate evaluation
political promotion
voting behavior

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

During the last 50 years. as election polls in the U. S. and in most other countries have proliferated. there has been an ongoing controversy over their electoral effects. Their perceived influence on election outcomes has been sufficient to lead to calls for legislation restricting the publishing of opinion polls during a campaign, restrictions that already exist in countries as diverse as Germany. Japan, France, South Korea. and Brazil (McAllister and Studlar 1991; Mutz. 1992) . These restrictions suggest that pre-election polls have some effects on election outcomes, or at least that some people suspect some effects and think the results could. more or less, hurt the fairness of an election. Counter arguments conclude that perception of public opinion has little impact on vote preference (Asher 1992, Marsh. 1983; Merkle 1991 ) . Many believe that traditional factors such as affect. candidates, issue. party. etc ., are the factors that determine vote preference rather than the perceptions of public preference ( Niemi and Weishberg, 1993 ) . Despite these arguments. evidence from surveys and experimental studies remains inconclusive. One of the earliest discussions of polls' effect on voting. by Lazarsfeld. Berelson. and Gaudet (1948) , found many voters attempting to sense the direction of public opinion and the outcome in order to vote "with the winner. " Follow-up work (Berelson. Lazarsfeld, and McPhee. 1954) revealed that a bandwagon effect (perception guiding preference) and a projection explanation (preference guiding perception) carried about equal weight in presidential election voting. Some laboratory studies of artificial elections coupled with bogus poll results produced an "underdog" effect of people shifting to the minority rather than majority view (Ceci. 1982, Fletias, 1971 ) . Evidence from the 1988 NES Super Tuesday Study showed that some voters vote for their second (or even lower) choice rather than their most preferred candidate in order to stop another candidate they like even less (Abramson et. ai, 1992 ) .

Keywords

band float effect
projection effect
strategic voting
US presidential election
voting behavior
political psychology

Abstract

By using the following three variables: candidate image evaluation, expected capability in solving problem, and voter's party preference in predicting in 1996 presidential, this study demonstrates that the findings have been highly close to election result, with the difference falling within three percent. The model has also been proved stable in terms of its minor variable in prediction throughout the three different testing time frame. The major findings of this study can be summed up as following: first of all, a no-response voter could vote for the candidate who was ranked first in image evaluation; secondary, problem-solving capability will be the second electoral decisive factor for a no-response voter, if he/she could not decide which candidate scores highest; thirdly, if a no-response repondent can decide which candidate could be the most capable one, he/she would vote accordingly, otherwise he/she tends to vote for the candidate with the same party affiliation; fourthly, those could not be screened out through the preceding process are, to an extent, inclined to vote for the DPP's candidates than for the counterparts of the rest two parties.

Keywords

Election prediction
Voting behavior
Public opinion poll

Abstract

This paper examines the process of voters' voting decision and develops a way of predicting voters' voting decision. Most surveys on election prediction are based on respondents' answers on their vote choices. However, this paper indicates two serious problems in this way of election prediction. One problem comes from the indecision of most voters, and the other problems comes from measurement errors. To deal with this problem, this paper provides a way of estimating each voter's probabilities of voting for each candidiate. The author indicates that the probability of voting for a particular candidate is not 0, neither is 1. Instead, the probability of voting for a particular candidate ranges from 0 to 1. The author bases on four major variables--candidate evaluations, party identification, incumbent government satisfaction, and ethnicity-- to construct a vote choice model, and estimates the model by way of a multinomial logit model. Then, the author calculates individual voters' probabilities of voting for each of the candidates. The research finding shows that the chance of voting for a particular candidate is large if a voter has a high probability of voting for the candidate. Based on this principle, the paper predicts the outcomes of four elections and two of them are quite accurate.

Keywords

Voting decision
Voting behavior
Election forecast
Multinomial logit model

Abstract

In this paper, I use a multinomial logit model to explain how voters decided their votes in the 1996 Presidential election in Tai-wan. Generally, a voter's party identification and evaluation toward three major candidates played important roles on his or her vote choice in this election. The political climate, popularity among the four candidates and the distribution of partisans, favored President Lee Teng-hui. His maintaining economic prosperity and attraction to those middle-of-the-road voters also helped him to win this elec-tion. Both Mr. Peng Ming-min and Lin Yang-kang got their support from those with higher education and with the feeling of the nation-al economy being worse. As to voters' ethnic identity, people iden-tifying themselves as Taiwanese inclined to support Mr. Peng. However, Mr. Lin did not gain advantage from those whom with Chinese identity. On the "social welfare v. economic development" issue, respondents with being closer to "social welfare" stances tend-ed to support Mr. Peng. On the "reform v. status quo" issue, Mr. Peng's supporters came from those whose stances being closer to "reform."

Keywords

Election
Multinomial logit model
Presidential election
Taiwan
Voting behavior

Abstract

This study focuses on the analysis of the relative importance of policy considerations, candidate personality assessments, and partisanship in the presidential selection process. In constructing my statistical models, I utilize developments in information processing theory to construct variables that conform to the on-line information processing assumption. Previous studies using open-ended questions to operationalize candidate assessments may underestimate their effects. I find that for the whole electorate, the personal characteristics of candidates have the most effect of the three schemata under examination, and there is a strong indirect influence of candidate assessment on policy considerations through projection and persuasion effects.

Keywords

presidential election
voting behavior
two-stage least square
candidate-centered politics

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

This thesis using individual level survey data to analyze the developingand changing situation of independent voters in Taiwan from 1989through 1999.In particular,this thesis examines changing party identificationand social background of independent voters,changing political involvementamong independent voters,changing vote intentions of independentvoters,and the facts which have influenced the develop of independentvoters.Our research outcomes have shown that although the percentageof independent voters in Taiwan has declined,in recent years thistrend seems to have reversed,The percentage of independent voters hasactually been influenced by changes in the electoral system.There are differencesin social background between independents and party identifiers.The degree of political involvement of independent voters is lower thanthat of party identifiers.Their evaluation of candidates and parties is alsolower than those of party identifiers.They tend to stay neutral to all politicalissues.when making their voting decisions,they tend to consider theconditions of the candidates,rather than voting by the boundary ofparties.However,we also discover that independent voters are graduallyevolving from”apathetic independent voters”,with lower politicalknowledge and lower political involvement,to”ideal independentvoters”,with higher political knowledge and higher political involvement.Looking to the future,we can predict that the percentage of independentvoters will likely decline.With the continuing development ofdemocracy and the increasing maturity and stability of party politics,weexpect that the percentage of party indentifiers will grow.However,thisdoes not necessarily mean that the percentage of independent voters willdecline dramatically.Because of the expectation that independent votersare the ideal citizens,we believe that there are still a certain percentage ofpeople who will consider themselves as independent voters.Hence,independentvoters increasingly will not be”apathetic independent voters”who know nothing about politics.On the contrary,they will become”ideal citizens”who keep highly concerned about politics and make politicaldecisions according to their own subjective attitudes.

Keywords

Election Prediction
Uncertainty
Logistic Regression
Voting Behavior
No Response Voter

Abstract

Most electoral studies emphasize the relationships among variables, but paid little attention to how voters process political information. Past studies based on experimental design concluded that the memory-based information processing model can not correctly describe how people process political information, and proposed on-line information processing model as a better alternative. This article discusses the on-line information processing model and its application in voting behavior research. The author also uses NES survey data to provide supplementary evidence to the experimental design findings on the on-line model. We found that the online information processing model is a more plausible model than the memory-based model. Therefore, we have to be careful in generalizing past results based on the memory-based models, and have to be especially careful when analyzing open-ended questionnaires. It is important for us to enhance our understanding of voter information processing to help construct better voting behavior models.

Keywords

information processing
voting behavior
on-line information processing
memory-based information processing
open-ended questions

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine how the issue Taiwan independence versus unification with the Mainland (hereinafter the TI-UM issue) affects Taiwan's politics through elections in the 1990s. To achieve this purpose, this article deals with three major issues. The first is to show how the TI-UM issue emerges and evolves in Taiwan's political arena. The second is to show how voters' position on the TI-UM issue affects their voting behavior, and how these effects differ across different elections. The third is to show what the determinants are and how the determinants affect voters' position on the TI-UM issue. This research focuses on five elections across different periods of time. They are gubernatorial and mayoral elections in 1994, legislator's elections in 1995 and 1998, and presidential elections in 1996 and 2000. The data used in this research are the post-election face-to-face interviews conducted by the Election Study Center in National Chengchi University.

Keywords

the issue Taiwan independence versus unification with the Mainland
party preference
political generation
ethnic identification
voting behavior

Abstract

In this paper, we employ longitudinal data to explore the change and continuity of political trust among the electorate in Taiwan. After the 2000 presidential election, whether the distribution of political trust will follow the rotation of ruling power is our research interest. We also would like to explore which factors affect people's political trust, and how political trust might affect people's voting behavior. By employing 1992, 1995, 1998, and 2001 face-to face interviews after legislative elections, we are able to explore the change and continuity of people's political trust in Taiwan. From our findings, we showed that the distribution of people's political trust declined during 1992 and 1998. However, as the 2001 survey data showed, people's political trust rebounded after the 2000 presidential election. Among factors affected people's political trust, people's partisan preference toward the KMT, voters among the first generation, people with elementary school education were more likely to have higher level of political trust between 1992 and 1998. However, people with the DPP or the NP partisan preference were more likely to have lower level of political trust. After the 2000 presidential election, people with the DPP partisan preference changed their level of political trust, and became more likely to trust the ruling authorities. We also demonstrated that people with higher level of political trust were more likely to support the ruling party in the legislative elections.

Keywords

Legislative elections
Political attitudes
Political attitudes
Political trust
Voting behavior

Abstract

This Study discusses the differences between journalists and political scientists while observing and predicting elections, and examines whether there are discrepancies between the media's schema and the public's interest during campaign. Overall speaking, political scientists are able to predict or explain voting behavior months before the election, using demographic variables such as partisanship, unification/independence stance, ethnic identity, gender, and age with considerable stability and accuracy (Lewis-Beck and Rice, 1992; Rosenstone, 1983). However, from the perspective of media report, candidates' support ratings rise and fall along with campaign strategies and news events, public opinion seems to be variable and difficult to predict. Therefore, this article would like to first provide a plausible explanation to the above dilemma. Subsequently, the author would like to examine the media focus during campaign to see if their coverage reflects the issues people deem important. Empirical data shows that the media operates on its own logic, and there is a considerable gap between media campaign coverage and the issues people care most about.

Keywords

election prediction
media report
opinion polls
voting behavior
content analysis
game schema
governing schema

Abstract

Spatial perspectives were seldom applied on the study of voting behavior in Taiwan in the past. However, the regional differentiation of voting behavior had been generally attended. Moreover, it would certainly dominate the division of Single-Member Districts and the eventual outcome. The authors attempt to explore spatial issues in electoral studies in this article. First, by defining spatial effects as spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependency, it could be then revealed how it influenced voting behavior. Secondly, indicators of spatial autocorrelation and the spatial regression model are introduced to explore and examine spatial effects. In the later half of the article, the 2004 Taiwan presidential election is taken as an empirical example to support three hypotheses: 1) similar voting are spatially clustered, in other words, voting are similar among neighboring communities; 2) residuals in the classical regression model exhibited regional differentiation that reveals spatial heterogeneity; 3) contiguous voters can still be affected even the social factors such as age, education, industry, income and ethnicity have been controlled (a revelation of the dominance of spatial dependence). The authors thus conclude that it shall always be taken into consideration regarding where the voters live.

Keywords

spatial autocorrelation
spatial dependence
spatial heterogeneity
spatial regression model
voting behavior

Abstract

The subjects of retrospective voting and issue voting have recently become the major focuses in the study of voting behavior. It is quite appropriate to investigate the models of retrospective voting and issue voting for the 2005 elections in Taiwan. Except for the emphasis on the factors of candidates and political parties in the traditional analysis of voting behavior, this study tries to explore the influence of retrospective voting and issue voting on the results of the 2005 Magistrate Elections of Taipei and Kaohsiung Counties. By conducting empirical analysis, we have had some important findings as follow. First of all, both retrospective voting and issue voting are not the important factors in this given elections. Secondly, the factors of political parties and candidates are critical forces in influencing the outcome of the elections. Thirdly, the influence of the variable of political parties is powerful than the variable of candidates in the elections. Finally, the factors of ”Ma Ying-chiu phenomenon” and ”Chen Che-nan Scandal” are not as important as we expected intuitively.

Keywords

voting behavior
economic approach of voting behavior
retrospective voting
issue voting

Abstract

Due to undervotes, misvotes, or switchvotes bias, many polling data users felt frustrated in using the past polling outcome to forecast the new election. It is commonplace for voters to note an early frontrunner in polls will be doomed to fall in the real election outcome. A beta-binominal distribution is suggested to model the accuracy of early poll outcome which strategically influences the polling data users such as political parties, candidates, and mass media in implementing the election campaign. We demonstrate the advantages of probabilistic distribution and Bayesian reasoning, and how to estimate the parameters from past data, in modifying the accuracy of prior poll outcomes. In comparison with the traditional frequency approach, beta-binominal mixture distribution imposes a statistical-adjusting framework with ability to proportionate a coherent mechanism that synthesizes the performances of prior votes. The empirical data sets include the 2004 US presidential election in Atlas Web and TVBS polls in 2006 Kaohsiung mayor election and 2008 presidential election in Taiwan. This paper describes the general fitting of beta-binomial distribution on both datasets and discusses fruitful avenues for future research.

Keywords

Public Polling
Voting Behavior
Election Forecasting
Mixture Distribution
Bayesian Statistics

Abstract

Ethnic and identity problems are important issues in modern Taiwanese politics. This paper examines Taiwanese identity from the aspect of ethnic and identity theory. The author develops a ”Taiwanese consciousness” index to explore the effect of identity in the past four presidential elections. The results show that Taiwanese consciousness has increased year by year, with more than half (54.7%) of Taiwan voters now classified into the high level of Taiwanese consciousness. The data also show that people with different degrees of Taiwanese consciousness vote differently and are increasingly polarized around identity. People with high-level Taiwanese consciousness tend to vote for pan-green candidates, while people with lowlevel Taiwanese consciousness tend to vote for pan-blue candidates. The data also indicate that the support bases of different parties are quite different. Votes for pan-green candidates mostly come from people with high-level Taiwanese consciousness, and this fraction has steadily increased; at the same time, support for pan-blue candidates has fallen significantly among this group. The analysis shows that partisan identification performs better than the ”Taiwanese consciousness” index at predicting vote choice, but the ”Taiwanese consciousness” index still has additional explanatory power. This paper also finds that the effect of ”sengi” (voters' provincial background) is not significant in the four presidential elections after controlling for other variables. This result suggests that the identity issue in Taiwan is now more an expression of ideological differences than ethnic ones.

Keywords

ethnicity
identity
Taiwanese consciousness
voting behavior

Abstract

This paper analyzes the extent to which performances of the central governments could shape Legislative Yuan by-election outcomes. Based on the retrospective voting theory and referendum voting theory, this research used the survey data of Taiwan's Elections and Democratization Studies (TEDS) to explore whether one's assessments of the central government's performances affect his/her choice in by-elections. There are some findings from this research: first, the result showed Miaoli's first district voters have differing voting behavior compared to voters in Taipei City's sixth district and Yunlin's second district. The assessment on central government performance has no significant influence on Miaoli's voters voting behavior; second, for the voters in Taipei City sixth district and Yunlin second district, the assessment of the central government performance have mixed effects due to the election context. As a result, we may conclude that the by-elections in Taipei City sixth district and Yunlin second district can be regarded as referenda on the central government, but the by-election in Miaoli's first district was different from the others.

Keywords

referendum theory
by-election
assessment of government performance
voting behavior

Abstract

This study uses the method of two-stage least squares of dynamic panel data models to examine the variables closely related to electoral stability and change in Taiwan, especially focusing on the impact of electoral reform of the Legislative Yuan in 2008 on voting behavior. To account for causal effects, the analysis includes 1,820 observations consisted of the 364 township and village-level units of five legislative elections from 1998 to 2012. The data sources come from the archive of election outcomes officially released by the Central Election Commission, and the statistical yearbooks published by county and city governments. The findings reveal that the variables of electoral reforms, types of electoral system, gender ratio, the level of educational attainment, and proportion of civil servants present statistically significant associations with the index of vote volatility. In addition, the factors of macroeconomic conditions, voting patterns, and geographical contexts emerge as statistically significant and in the anticipated directions. The empirical results demonstrate the Duverger’s law and also the self-fulfilling prophecy; i.e., the reforms of electoral system exert a profound effect of the stability and change of voting behavior. There are at least three academic implications that can be drawn from the outcome of this study. First, this study verifies the relationship between electoral system, party system, and electoral stability and change. Second, it empirically measures the vote volatility index which might be valuable for campaign strategies. Last, different from the qualitative and limited dependent variable models in the previous studies of political participation, this study takes advantage of a dynamic panel data model to assess the impact of electoral reforms on stability and change in voting behavior. Developing an electoral model that is both concise and accurate awaits future research.

Keywords

electoral stability and change
electoral reform
elections to the Legislative Yuan
dynamic panel data model
voting behavior
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