台灣地區縣市層級「分立政府」影響之初探

Abstract

邇來，行政部門與立法部門分屬不同政黨所掌握的「分立政府」(divided government)，已成為我國各級政府普遍存在的型態。鑑於分立政府意涵及其議題具有相當的重要性，本文旨在探討台灣地區地方層級分立政府與「一致政府」(unified government)的運作情形。關於分立政府的成因，本文扼要回顧相關文獻，儘管研究者嘗試提供不同學說以詮釋選民分裂投票行為，然而迄今尚未發展出周延的解釋。至於分立政府是否導致政策滯塞和僵局，亦是學界爭議的焦點。本文分析1998年直轄市和縣市政府施政滿意度資料，藉此檢證分立政府與一致政府在施政績效方面的表現差異。分析結果顯示，在一致政府體制之下，民眾對於縣市政府表現的滿意度評價未必高於政府，這似乎意味著分立政府並不必然導致行政部門與立法部門的僵局；此外，民眾的評價相當程度受其政黨偏好的影響。在結論中，本文認為分立政府應可成為研究台灣地區政治發展的另一重要領域，此外亦提出未來研究的方向與建議。

The phenomenon of divided government－that is, the executive and legislative branches are controlled by different political parties－has become daily reality in Taiwan’s notional and local politics. Yet it receives relatively little attention from a comparative perspective. In the literature, scholars tend to disagree with each other concerning whether divided government leads to policy gridlock, stalemate and inefficiency. This study attempts to shed some light on this important issue by exploring the effects of city/county-level divided government on local residents’ perception of their mayor/magistrate in Taiwan. We take advantage of a 1998 survey data set of the public’s evaluations of city/county government performance and examine if different forms of divided government affect residents’ responses. Our findings indicate that those residents in cities or counties under divided governments express more negative views only on three out of six indicators, although their party identification also seems to be an important intervening variable in shaping their opinion. It seems to imply that divided government at the local level does not necessarily suffer from stalemate between the executive and legislative branches.