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Abstract

Before Taiwan’s Seventh Constitutional Amendment in 2005, there existed a system of party-list legislators (so-called “at-large legislators”), but voters could only vote for district legislators. After electoral reform, voters can now cast a separate two votes for their preferred district legislator and a political party. This study contends that the electoral reform incentivized parties to nominate “quality candidates” for the party list to garner voter recognition. This study analyzes the characteristics of party-list candidates from 1992 to 2024 who took part in ten congressional elections, and specifically focuses on the political recruitment of major parties in Taiwan. This research finds that parties recruited more highly educated candidates, reduced nominations of incumbent legislators, and increased nominations of a broader spectrum of candidates from various professions and social groups after the electoral reform. However, when examining the difference between a “realistic list” (“safe list”) and a “symbolic list” (“unsafe list”), parties have tended to prefer to place incumbent legislators on the realistic list, no matter before or after the electoral reform. Furthermore, when focusing only on the major parties, particularly the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party, it has been observed that after the electoral reform, they not only increased the nomination of professionals and social group representatives but also showed no significant difference in the placement of various occupations on either the realistic or symbolic lists. This indicates that the major parties did indeed nominate a more diverse societal representation in the post-reform period. However, veteran legislators and candidates with backgrounds in local or party factions still have had a higher chance of being included in the realistic list. This suggests that even after the electoral reform, the party list system has not been able to fully escape its role in balancing internal political forces within the parties.

Abstract

Calling for electoral reform is particularly harsh in the recent years, especially after President Chen announced to adopt Single-Member Constituency Parallel System for the forthcoming general elections after the Conference for Governmental Reform on 5th May 2002. Unfortunately, comparison studies on alternative methods are still few. In order to advance understandings on concerned circumstances, this article tries to analyse and compare political consequences, reform effects and feasibilities of major alternative systems, i. e. Single-Member Constituency Parallel System, Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP), Medium-Sized Constituency Parallel System, and Open-list Proportional Representation, called by different parties in the congress.

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.