Abstract
The 2016 general elections were a milestone in Taiwan’s political history. The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) was defeated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which was not only able to win the presidency but also, for the first time in history, an outright majority in the Legislative Yuan (Parliament). Potentially, the 2016 elections might portend a partisan realignment between the two major political parties (or the two major political groupings—the Pan-KMT camp and the Pan-DPP camp) for many years to come. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the events leading to the elections and the factors that may have affected the turnout and voters’ vote choices in these crucial elections in this young democracy.
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Notes
- 1.
See John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, “Taiwan’s 2016 Elections: Critical Elections?.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 23, no. 1 (April 2016): 9–23.
- 2.
The TEDS surveys were conducted by a consortium of academic researchers from various institutions in Taiwan, sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (formerly National Science Council). Professor Chi Huang has been the coordinator of these surveys since 2000.
- 3.
See William H. Riker, “The Two-Party System and Duverger’s Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science,” American Political Science Review 76, no. 4 (December 1982): 753–66. See also Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State, trans. Barbara North and Robert North (London: Methuen, 1954).
- 4.
In the 2000 election, James Soong, a KMT-turned independent, lost the race by a small margin. He later formed his own party, the PFP.
- 5.
The SNTV system is one in which a voter can cast only one vote for a candidate in a multimember district. It was used in the Legislative Yuan elections prior to the constitutional reform of 2005. For a comparison between the old and new systems, see John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, “The Origins and Consequences of Electoral Reform in Taiwan,” Issues & Studies 45, no. 2 (June 2009): 1–22.
- 6.
Ibid. See also Gary W. Cox, Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
- 7.
The NPP was able to capture 2.9 and 6.1 percent of the vote with three and two seats in the SMD and PR portions of the election, respectively. The PFP won 6.5 percent of the vote and three seats in the PR part.
- 8.
According to Taiwan’s Election and Recall Laws, no polls can be released ten days prior to polling day.
- 9.
The cube law is based essentially upon the British experience. See Rein Taagepera and Matthew Soberg Shugart, Seats and Votes: The Effects and Determinants of Electoral Systems (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989).
- 10.
Dafydd Fell, “Small parties in Taiwan’s 2016 National Elections: A Limited Breakthrough?” American Journal of Chinese Studies 23, no. 1 (April 2016): 41–58.
- 11.
For issues separating the two parties, see John Fuh-sheng Hsieh and Emerson M.S. Niou, “Issue Voting in the Republic of China on Taiwan’s 1992 Legislative Yuan Election,” International Political Science Review 17, no. 1 (January 1996): 13–27; John Fuh-sheng Hsieh and Emerson M.S. Niou, “Salient Issues in Taiwan’s Electoral Politics,” Electoral Studies 15, no. 2 (May 1996): 219–235; and Tse-min Lin, Yun-han Chu, and Melvin J. Hinich, “Conflict Displacement and Regime Transition in Taiwan: A Spatial Analysis,” World Politics 48, no. 4 (July 1996): 453–481.
- 12.
Hsieh, “Taiwan’s 2016 Elections.”
- 13.
See, for example, the Taiwan Indicators Survey Research polls at http://www.tisr.com.tw/?p=6745.
- 14.
On political opportunities and social movements, see, for example, Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
- 15.
Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1957).
- 16.
William H. Riker and Peter C. Ordeshook, “A Theory of the Calculus of Voting,” American Political Science Review 62, no. 1 (March 1968): 25–42. See also John H. Aldrich, “Rational Choice and Turnout,” American Journal of Political Science 37, no. 1 (Feb., 1993): 246–278.
- 17.
See the argument about cross-national differences in Mark N. Franklin, “The Dynamics of Electoral Participation,” in Comparing Democracies 2: New Challenges in the Study of Elections and Voting, eds. Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi, and Pippa Norris (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2002), 148–168.
- 18.
There is a huge literature on the effect of SES on voting. See, for example, Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie, Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).
- 19.
The 2016 TEDS data show that 12.8 percent of KMT supporters, as compared to 8.8 percent of DPP supporters, did not turn out to vote. However, it is hard to interpret this result. First, the turnout rate in the survey is about 18 percent higher than the actual turnout rate, rendering the interpretation difficult. (This is a common problem for election surveys since many respondents may overstate their intention to turn out to vote.) Second, it is likely that some long-time KMT supporters were so disappointed in the party that they refused to support it—at least for now—and did not tell the interviewers that they were KMT supporters.
- 20.
Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
Morris P. Fiorina, Retrospective Voting in American National Elections (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981), 84.
- 23.
Interestingly, it seems that rational choice theory of vote choice comes to resemble the Michigan School by including partisanship. However, the two are still different. For the Michigan School, party identification is a long-term affectional attachment with a party, which voters may have acquired in the socialization process and is at the core of their voting decisions. For the Michigan School of voting, see Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, The American Voter (New York: John Wiley, 1960), and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, William G. Jacoby, Helmut Norpoth, and Herbert F. Weisberg, The American Voter Revisited (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2008).
- 24.
For a classical treatment of social cleavages, see Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction,” in Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives, ed. Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan (New York: The Free Press, 1967), 1–64. For the emergence of such a new cleavage as post-materialisms, see Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), and Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990).
- 25.
Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999), 78–89.
- 26.
John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, “Ethnicity, National Identity, and Domestic Politics in Taiwan,” Journal of Asian Studies 40, no. 1–2 (April 2005): 13–28.
- 27.
That low turnout cost the KMT some votes seems to be true given the low turnout in many of the KMT’s traditional strongholds. But the TEDS data are not appropriate to examine this effect. See the explanation in fn. 18.
- 28.
There is a huge literature on economic voting. See, for example, Michael B. MacKuen, Robert S. Erikson, and James A. Stimson, “Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and the U.S. Economy,” American Political Science Review 86, no. 3 (September 1972): 597–611; Wouter van der Brug, Cees van der EijK, and Mark Franklin, The Economy and the Vote: Economic Conditions and Elections in Fifteen Countries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and Raymond M. Duch and Randolph T. Stevenson, The Economic Vote: How Political and Economic Institutions Condition Election Results (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). On the case of Taiwan, see John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, Dean Lacy, and Emerson M.S. Niou, “Retrospective and Prospective Voting in a One-Party-Dominant Democracy: Taiwan’s 1996 Presidential Election,” Public Choice 97, no. 3 (December 1998): 383–99.
- 29.
Hsieh, “Taiwan’s 2016 Elections.”
- 30.
Ibid.
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———. 1990. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Lin, Tse-min, Yun-han Chu, and Melvin J. Hinich. 1996. Conflict Displacement and Regime Transition in Taiwan: A Spatial Analysis. World Politics 48: 453–481.
Lipset, Seymour M., and Stein Rokkan. 1967. Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction. In Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives, ed. Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, 1–64. New York: The Free Press.
MacKuen, Michael B., Robert S. Erikson, and James A. Stimson. 1972. Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and the U.S. Economy. American Political Science Review 86: 597–611.
Riker, William H. 1982. The Two-Party System and Duverger’s Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science. American Political Science Review 76: 753–766.
Riker, William H., and Peter C. Ordeshook. 1968. A Theory of the Calculus of Voting. American Political Science Review 62: 25–42.
Taagepera, Rein, and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 1989. Seats and Votes: The Effects and Determinants of Electoral Systems. New Haven: Yale University Press.
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Van der Brug, Wouter, Cees van der EijK, and Mark Franklin. 2007. The Economy and the Vote: Economic Conditions and Elections in Fifteen Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Verba, Sidney, and Norman H. Nie. 1972. Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York: Harper & Row.
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Hsieh, J.Fs. (2019). Taiwan’s General Elections of 2016. In: Lee, Wc. (eds) Taiwan’s Political Re-Alignment and Diplomatic Challenges. Politics and Development of Contemporary China. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77125-0_3
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