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The Taiwan Voter examines the critical role ethnic and national identities play in politics, utilizing the case of Taiwan. Although elections there often raise international tensions, and have led to military demonstrations by China, no scholarly books have examined how Taiwan's voters make electoral choices in a dangerous environment. Critiquing the conventional interpretation of politics as an ideological battle between liberals and conservatives, The Taiwan Voter demonstrates in Taiwan the party system and voters' responses are shaped by one powerful determinant of national identity—the China factor.
Taiwan's electoral politics draws international scholarly interest because of the prominent role of ethnic and national identification. While in most countries the many tangled strands of competing identities are daunting for scholarly analysis, in Taiwan the cleavages are powerful and limited in number, so the logic of interrelationships among issues, partisanship, and identity are particularly clear. The Taiwan Voter unites experts to investigate the ways in which social identities, policy views, and partisan preferences intersect and influence each other. These novel findings have wide applicability to other countries, and will be of interest to a broad range of social scientists interested in identity politics.
The Open Access edition was funded by the Top University Project of National Chengchi University, made possible by a grant from Taiwan's Ministry of Education.
Fig. 2.4. Percentages of three income groups voting for the Pan-Blue. Note: The survey for the 2000 presidential election lacks the question on household income. See appendix 2.A1 for the categorization of income groups. Data: See appendix 2.A3.
Fig. 2.8. Partisan identification with the Pan-Blue Alliance by ethnic groups, 1992–2012. Data source: Core Political Attitudes among Taiwanese (Election Study Center, NCCU).
Fig. 2.9. Partisan identification with the Pan-Green Alliance by ethnic groups, 1992–2012. Data source: Core Political Attitudes among Taiwanese (Election Study Center, NCCU).
Fig. 3.4. Taiwan voters’ views on Beijing’s friendliness toward the Taipei government, 1996–2012. Data source: Core Political Attitudes among Taiwanese. (Election Study Center, NCCU).
Fig. 5.1. Respondents’ issue positions on reform/stability and their perceptions about the positions of the parties (1996–2008). Source: Appendix 5.A2. Note: On the horizontal axis, “P” indicates that surveys were conducted after the presidential election; “L” indicates that surveys were taken after the legislative election.
Fig. 5.2. Respondents’ issue positions on social welfare/tax raises and their perceptions about the parties’ positions (2000–2012). Source: Appendix 5.A2. Note: On the horizontal axis, “P” indicates that surveys were conducted after the presidential election; “L” indicates that surveys were taken after the legislative election. In 2012 the presidential election and the legislative election were held at the same time.
Fig. 5.3. Respondents’ issue positions on environmental protection/economy and their perceptions about the parties’ positions (1998–2008). Source: Appendix 5.A2. Note: On the horizontal axis, “P” indicates that surveys were conducted after the presidential election; “L” indicates that surveys were taken after the legislative election.
Fig. 5.4. Respondents’ issue positions on independence/unification and their perceptions about the positions of the parties (1996–2012). Source: Appendix 5.A2. Note: On the horizontal axis, “P” indicates that surveys were conducted after the presidential election; “L” indicates that surveys were taken after the legislative election.
Fig. 5.5. Party identifiers’ issue positions on independence/unification and their perceptions about the positions of the parties (1996–2012). Source: Appendix 5.A3. Notes: 1. IDKMT = KMT identifiers. IDDPP = DPP identifiers. Here the placements of the KMT and DPP are the average perception of KMT identifiers and DPP identifiers, respectively; that is, KMT=KMT as perceived by KMT identifiers; DPP=DPP as perceived by DPP identifiers. 2. On the horizontal axis, “P” indicates that surveys were conducted after the presidential election; “L” indicates that surveys were taken after the legislative election.
Fig. 5.6. The proportion of voters defining the most important position issue in the presidential elections. Source: Table 5.1. Note: Data is not available for 2000. On the horizontal axis, “P” indicates that surveys were conducted after the presidential election; “L” indicates that surveys were taken after the legislative election.
Fig. 5.7. The proportion of voters defining the most important position issue in the legislative elections. Source: Table 5.1. Note: On the horizontal axis, “P” indicates that surveys were conducted after the presidential election; “L” indicates that surveys were taken after the legislative election.
Fig. 10.1. Taiwan’s political party system, 1986–2012. Source: Author. Note: 1. % in the parentheses denotes percentage of seats in the Legislative Yuan; the broken line denotes an alliance, loosely defined as some form of cooperation between parties. For example, many NP candidates ran under the KMT’s umbrella in 2001 and 2004, and the PFP agreed not to run its own party list in 2008 in exchange for KMT’s promise to nominate six former PFP legislators in six districts and also allowed the PFP to share four seats on the KMT’s party list. Although formally there was no NP legislator in 2008 and 2012, NP continues to be active in some local elections.
Fig. 10.2. Timing of Taiwan’s major national and local elections. Source: Huang and Lin 2013. Notes: 1. Circles with dashed lines denote concurrent elections with the same set of ballots. 2. Dotted line in 2014 means special-city elections were held on the same day as other cities/counties but with a different set of ballots.