The Geographical Contexts in Taiwan's Presidential Elections

Most of previous electoral studies atomized voters as detached from their geographical contexts. To provide evidences that geography does matter in voting in Taiwan, this dissertation shall put voters in their places by combining individual and ecological data of the presidential election of Taiwan in 2004. The findings show that similar people vote differently in different places. First, people who identify themselves as Taiwanese are more likely to vote DPP, while the higher the percentage of Hohlo in a township, the residents are more likely identify themselves as Taiwanese; the higher the percentage of mainlanders in a township, it is then less likely that residents identify themselves as Taiwanese. Second, residents with senior high school education or above are more likely to vote DPP in more affluent townships, while those with junior high education or below are more likely to vote DPP in more deprived townships. Moreover, the empirical evidences also support that people interacting with others in local social networks. First, residents are more likely to discuss important things with DPP supporters in the townships which DPP got higher vote share in 2000, while these conversations encourage non-DPP voters swinging to DPP and prevent DPP voters defecting from DPP in 2004. Second, the more the interactions between residents of two townships, the closer the correlation of changes of DPP vote share between these two townships. Therefore, voting behaviours and election outcomes can be better explained by including geographical contexts into consideration.