home
Home
navigate_next
Search results
Search results
Abstract
The bitter rivalries that used to occur only among political elites have now reached the everyday lives of the mass public. In particular, the results of presidential elections have been driven as much by affective conflict between partisans as by policy debates. The present study explores affective polarization in Taiwan through negative partisanship. Data from presidential elections between 2004 and 2020 provide evidence for the effect of negative partisanship on election results. The study found that starting in 2012, there has been a rapid increase in negative views among partisans in both main parties toward the opposing party. In the 2020 presidential election, more than 40% of both Kuomintang (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters showed negative partisanship towards the opposing party. Furthermore, supporters of both parties had the lowest ever favorability scores for the opposing party. Even when traditional party identification and support for independence or reunification are controlled, negative partisanship still has significant explanatory power. The decision to vote for a candidate from a particular party in presidential elections depends not only on one’s long-term identification with that party but also on whether one harbors a strong negative opinion towards the opposing party.
Abstract
This research examines how TV reported the campaign and the candidates during Taiwan's first-ever presidential election in 1996. A content analysis of evening news coverage of six TV stations indicated that the state-owned broadcast TV stations were far more likely than the privately owned cable TV stations to give greater amount coverage and soundbites to the ruling party presidential and vice presidential candidates, using the ruling party officials as prince- pal news sources and contain more news favorable to the ruling party candidates than to other candidates.
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 ) .
Abstract
There are three major schools in the study of voting behavior, namely, sociological, sociopsychological and rational. Sociological school presents evidence that structural factors have high correlation coefficients between socioeconomic factors and voting choice. Sociopsychological school indicates that sociological factors are long term indirect determinants while party identification, candidate evalution, and issues are direct determinants. Rational approach suggests that the choices of vote is based on cost and benefit consideration. In this study, using post election survey data from the 1996 presidential election, three major approaches are tested thoroughly. In order to demonstrate that the integrated theory is better than those separated theories, seven possible combinations have been tested. The results show that psychological model is the best single model, ration and structural followed respectively. The best joint model is the combination of structural and psychological, followed by psychological and rational, and structural and rational. The intergrated model has slightly increased the explanatory power in terms of variance explained. Although the increase is not dramatic, the model maintains. This results suggest that the three approaches have overlapping explanation power, and no single model can claim to be the dominate model. Since the combined model can increase explanation power, thus, he integrated model should be emphasized in near future.
Abstract
This paper wants to know who is Lee's votary and examines the importance of candidate image, party identity, candidate's ability in the presidential election of 1996.The result indicated that Lee's main votaries are older, low school record and live in rural. Furthermore, candidate image turned out to be the most import ant factor in determining vote-choice. Party identity and candidate's ability ranked the next. In the Logit Model, Category of candidate images inclined to Lee Teng-hui and candidate images inclined to Lin Yang-kang had the most prominent contribution. Category of party identity trend to KMT and party identity trend to NP ranked the next. The result accord with social fact that voters of NP have strong anti-Lee complex, otherwise some DPP's followers have Lee Teng-hui complex.
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."
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.
Abstract
This paper examines how newspapers reported the campaign and candidates during the 2000 Presidential Election in Taiwan. Results of this study showed that state-owned newspapers were far more likely than privately owned newspapers to give greater coverage to the ruling party candidate, to use ruling party officials as news source, and to offer more news coverage favorable to the ruling party candidate than to other candidates.
Abstract
In election forecast, the ability to predict the intentions of undecided voters plays an important role in determining its accuracy. This article uses discriminant analysis with demographic variables, issue positions, and attitudinal variables, respectively, to classify voters who stated their voting preferences. We found that comparatively speaking, attitudinal variables can correctly classify voters with the highest percentage, followed by issue positions and demographic variables. However, none of the above models displayed satisfying results, not even the combined model including all three types of variables. Therefore, there are reasonable doubts employing these variables to construct models predicting the vote intention of undecided voters. The author then attempts to use feeling thermometer scores to classify voters who expressed their vote intention sand to predict the inclinations of undecided voters. After contrasting the results with the actual election outcome, we found that feeling thermometer scores have better discriminant power than previous models. The author also found that among the supporters of the three major candidates, ideologically speaking, Chen Shui-Bian's and Lian Chan's supporters are furthest away from each other on their average positions, while James Soong's supporters' average ideological position is closest to that of Lien Chan's supporters.
Abstract
Split ticket voting by New Party identifiers and Mainlanders had acrucial influence on the outcome of the 1998 Taipei City mayoral election.Large numbers of voters who identified themselves as New Party supportersvoted for the KMT mayoral candidate.However,in the concurrentCity Council elections,they voted for New Party candidates.This surprisingresult is worth researching.To analyze split ticket voting behavior,we consider six different logitmodels.After controlling basic demographic variables,including sex,age,education,and ethnic background,it is possible to discover what influencessplit ticket voting.First,weakening party identification can inducea dealignment process.This,in turn,gives rise to split ticketvoting.In the data,the intensity of party identification has an obvious effecton split ticket voting.However,there has been no dealignment.Thus,weakening party identification is not the main reason for split ticketvoting.The second factor is ethnic background.Mainlanders,especiallyyoung and middle aged voters,are more likely to split their tickets.Third,the related questions of unification or independence and Taiwaneseor Chinese identification also have influence.The effect of theunification/independence position is not significant,but therespondents' ethnic identity is.A fourth finding is that there is no significantcoattail effect influencing split ticket voting.Fifth,many voterswish to balance the parties against each other,and so they split theirvotes.Sixth,strategic voting by New Party supporters was very important.New Party supporters were very opposed to Chen Shui-bian,andthe New Party nominee did not have much chance of winning.As aresult,many split their votes,voting strategically for the KMT mayoralcandidate.After examining the six models,we find that the most important factorsinfluencing split ticket voting are ethnic background and strategicvoting by New Party supporters.These two factors are intimately connected,of course.
Abstract
This paper analyzes the image of the presidential candidates' wives, Lian Fang-yu, Wu Shu-zhen, and Chen Wan-shui, on newspapers during Taiwan's presidential campaign in 2000. This study employs content analysis to probe into the trend of the coverage and the image which was presented by three ladies, and the different coverage among four leading newspapers. For the amount of news coverage on them, ”Central Daily” covers most, and ”Liberty Times” covers least. ”straight news” is about 87.1% of the form of coverage, ”editorial” is about 8.6%, and ”interview” is about 4.3% .They appear mostly in the two subject categories: ”the political issues” and ”the activities participating or the schedules of public relations”. Moreover, there are significant differences in number of news article and image among four newspapers. The image of Lian: graceful, tender, ungracious, conservative, good at politics, poor at expressing, deep, active and positive, and popular. The image of Wu: ungraceful, tender, gracious, innovative, good at politics, good at expressing, deep, active and positive, and popular. The image of Chen: graceful, tender, gracious, innovative, good at politics, good at expressing, deep, active and positive, and popular.
Abstract
This study is intended to explore online campaign strategies of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) for the 2004 Presidential Election in Taiwan from a perspective of action research, which is rarely used in the field of communication research here. Since the researcher played a role of decision maker in the Kuomintang's online campaign, viewpoints of an insider are presented in this paper. The results show that to avoid recommitting the same failure in the 2000 presidential campaign, the Kuomintang paid much attention and effort on the Internet to against the Democratic Progressive Party. Despite the Kuomintang conducted successful strategies, the tactics to carry out the whole online campaign had some unintentional flaws.
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of presidential election on Taiwan's stock market. On March 22, 1996, it was the first time in Taiwan to vote the president directly. We used prospect theory to explain whether presidential election has impact on the stock market. The ruling party may win the election by manipulating the stock market. In this research, we examine whether the presidential elections would be interfered by ruling party by using the GJR-GARCH model. The evidence indicates that the stock market exits significant and positive impact three months before presidential elections. Because of the China military maneuvers pressure, the bullish market is offset by bear market. We don't find any significant impact one month before elections. When the outcome of the elections is clear, the return of stock market is positive and significant one month after presidential elections. The empirical result shows that parts of the individual stock does exist presidential election effect.
Abstract
When opinions are polarized in a bimodal pattern, parties will occupy the two poles of the political issue, retaining the support of the extremists. According to rational choice theory, on the other hand, voters have inadequate time to collect political information, thus they need a clear shortcut to reach decisions. Our first proposition is that issue polarizat ion will happen when political parties have long-term stances on certain issues. Our second proposition is that individual's issue position will decide one's voting behavior when polarization happens. To prove these two propositions, we examine how national identity and unification/independence issue transformed to the referendum issue in the 2004 presidential election. Our finding shows that whether or not picking up the referendum ballots indeed turned a polarized issue and it influenced voting behavior.
Abstract
This paper examines how major newspapers reported the campaign and candidates during the 2004 Presidential election in Taiwan. This study is based on a content analysis of presidential stories of four largest newspapers-the China Times, the United Daily News, the Liberty Times, and the Apple Daily. Results of this study showed that the Liberty Times was far more likely than the other three newspapers to give greater coverage to the ruling party candidates, to use pan blue officials as news sources, and to offer more news coverage favorable to the ruling party candidates than to other candidates.
Abstract
Political blocs analysis was created with the stated objectives of generating information regarding the political nature of spatial aggregation. Following this tradition, this paper is aimed to investigate the effect of region, ethnic groups and electoral system on the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) votes by using quantile regression model. The most important attribute of quantile regression models is that they not only allow to explore the overall significance of the independent (or explanatory) variables for the conditional distribution of the dependent (or response) variables, but at the same time make it possible to determine the varying influence that independent variables have on the dependent variables under distinct conditional distribution scenarios. We reach one conclusion that the DPP is a party whose political fortunate is very much determined by ethnic and regional characteristics.
Abstract
Based on the analysis of survey data collected on the eve of Taiwan's 2008 presidential election, our study seeks to clarify the effects of the following factors on the island citizens' voting behavior: (1)Taiwanese identity, (2)expected benefits from cross-Strait economic exchanges, and (3)the perceived likelihood of China's use of military force. The findings show that, in addition to party identification, both Taiwanese identity and expected economic benefits have important effects on the islanders' vote choices. Unexpectedly, China's military threats played an insignificant role in voters' decisions. Because Taiwanese identity and expected economic benefits are at the center of the political discourse on cross-Strait relations, future interactions between Taiwan and China will continue to play a significant role in the island's politics.
Abstract
Based on the expenditure of candidates and the media use of voters, TV ads are the most important candidate message in the contemporary elections. Considering possible negative impacts of television ads on democratic society, major democratic countries take different positions on the issue of restricting campaign ads. To provide data for related discussion, this study content-analyzed the 2008 Taiwanese presidential ads. The primary findings can be summarized in three aspects. First, the functions of the TV ads in 2008 Taiwanese election included 66% of acclaims, 32% of attacks, and 2% of defenses. Compared with the U.S. counterparts in 2008, Taiwanese ads were more positive. Regarding the individual candidates, the leading candidate Ma had more acclaims than the trailing candidate Hsieh. Second, the topics of 2008 Taiwanese presidential ads contained approximately 40% of policy messages, and 60% of character messages. This pattern is similar to the ads used in the 2000 Taiwanese election, while contrary to the U.S. counterparts. Third, compared to the 2008 Taiwanese presidential debates, TV ads stressed character more than televised debates. In addition, televised debates contained more defenses than TV ads.
Abstract
Prediction Markets have been widely used abroad to forecast election results for many years. It has also been proved that such a mechanism can accurately predict election outcomes. Therefore, this paper would like to understand whether prediction markets can accurately predict Taiwan's election outcomes. First, this paper introduces the mechanism of prediction markets and then applies the prediction market mechanism to predict Taiwan's elections. According to the data provided by the Exchange for Future Events, we find that the prediction markets mechanism has accurately predicted the outcomes of Taiwan's Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral elections in 2006, and Taiwan's presidential election and legislator election in 2008. For these three elections, the predictive accuracy of prediction markets is higher than (unweighted) opinion poll surveys conducted during the same period. This paper then discusses the differences between prediction market and opinion survey.
Abstract
This study examines how Taiwan Television Enterprise reported the campaign and candidates during the 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 presidential elections in Taiwan. A content analysis of evening election news of the television company indicated that there were significant quantity bias, source bias, and presentation bias in its coverage of the first three presidential election campaigns. However, the television company was more balanced in its coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. An in-depth interview of 10 reporters of the television company indicated that ownership structure has direct or indirect influence on election coverage of the television company. The change of ownership of the television company in 2007 has contributed to the achievement of more balanced media coverage in the 2008 presidential election.
