A Study on the Factors of Voting Participation in the Taiwan 2008 National Referendums

• Main Authors: Yu-wan Chen, 陳玉宛
• Other Authors: Cheng-shan Liu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/30220488690873068781

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 政治學研究所 === 99 === The Chinese Nationalist Party''s (KMT) assets referendum and the anti-corruption referendum took place alongside the Legislative election in January 2008. The same year, the other national referendums on joining UN and returning to UN were held with the Presidential election in March. In the Legislative election, while 59 percent of electorate voted, turnout rate for the referendums are surprisingly low to 26 percent. In the Presidential election, in spite of a high turnout rate of 76 percent, turnout rate for the referendums are merely 36 percent. What is the reason for people to vote in elections but not on referendums? Partisanship probably explains people’s turnout on referendum, but I suspect that there are more factors. This research provides a framework and a model of voting participation in referendum. Base on my analysis of Taiwan’s Election and Democratization Study(TEDS), I find the following: First, Partisanship is the only factor which affect the referendums in the Legislative election and the Presidential election. However, people’s partisanship reflects their values and leads to take or not to take referendum ballots. Other important factors of referendum voting participation are political interest, identity of Taiwanese or Chinese, What newspaper is used to read, unification-independence issue and perspectives on the relation between President and Legislative Yuan. Second, with identity of Taiwanese or Chinese and unification-independence issue, we could infer that attitudes about referendum issue affect referendum voting participation behavior. Finally, by the electors that prefer to check and balance between the executive power and the legislative power likely decide to take referendum ballots, we could assume that some voters who realize and support referendum system intend to vote on referendum.