Southern Politics? Regional Trajectories of Party Development in Taiwan

Abstract

A common assumption is that regional disparities affect voting behavior in Taiwan, given the fact that voters in the south show steady support for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The common sense premise is that the south provides a stable support base for the DPR Although a pattern of political clustering appears to be taking shape, empirical data are required to test this hypothesis.\nThe findings of this paper suggest that, first, regional factors are contingent on the influences of election type and the personal attributes of individual candidates. Second, above and beyond what appears commonsensical, the Kuomintang (KMT) shows greater regional disparities with respect to its support base than does the DPP. This article proposes that party realignment has significantly affected the KMT’s support base and has particularly influenced it in the non-southern area.