The Populist Enigma in Taiwan: The Identification of Taiwan’s Populist Supporters

Taiwan’s populism has drawn scholarly attention since the 1990s. However, the existence of populism at the mass level in Taiwan lacks rigorous conceptual scrutiny and empirical investigation. In this sense, this article explores two fundamental questions: (1) are there people with populist attitudes (populist voters) in Taiwan; and (2) if there are, which factors contribute to the development of populist attitudes at the individual level in Taiwan?

Populism in Taiwan? Big Data Analysis of the Internet

Populism is a trend in politics, but in terms of rigorous academic definitions, is there populism in Taiwan? The Internet is a hotbed of populism. This study analyzes big data on the Internet to understand the situation regarding populism in Taiwan. This research proposes the keywords and four aspects of populism on the basis of theory, supplemented by the populism keywords that actually appear on the Internet, and proposes keywords to observe the measurement of online populism, which is an important contribution of this paper to research on populism.

Youth Turnout in Referendums and Elections: Evidence from Regression Discontinuity Designs

This study addresses an interesting question on political participation in direct versus representative democracies. That is, are citizens more likely to turn out to vote in direct issue-oriented referendums or in indirect candidate-oriented public ofﬁce elections? In order to answer this question, this study takes advantage of a rare case of a natural experiment in Taiwan’s 2018 concurrent referendum and local elections.

Youth Turnout in Referendums and Elections: Evidence from Regression Discontinuity Designs

This study addresses an interesting question on political participation in direct versus representative democracies. That is, are citizens more likely to turn out to vote in direct issue-oriented referendums or in indirect candidate-oriented public ofﬁce elections? In order to answer this question, this study takes advantage of a rare case of a natural experiment in Taiwan’s 2018 concurrent referendum and local elections.

Democracy Deepening or Party Competition? A Primary Analysis of Taiwan’s 2004 Referendum

Previous studies on voting participation used to model individuals’ utilities and duties as the forces driving their participation. It is assumed that people maximize their utilities when they turn out. In the 2004 referendum, there were many controversies as to how to exercise direct democracy as well as fierce partisan battles. It is thus necessary to analyze the determinants of voting in the referendum from the perspective of social psychology. There are few empirical studies on the 2004 referendum.

The Development of Referendums at Germany’s Local, State(Land) and Federal Levels

Germany’s Constitution of 1911 provided referendums on federal, state and local level. The constitution of the Weimar Republic allowed the people to hold a referendum on issues. After World War II, Germany has no provision for popular participation through referendum at federal level. By 1990 only seven states had referendums at state level and only one state had direct democracy at local level. Since 1998 all 16 states have introduced referendums at state level and 15 at local level. The first part of the paper discusses the concepts and comparative classification of referendums.

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