Do Institutions Cause Strategic Voting? Evidence from Taiwan

• In Event: Electoral Institutions, Candidate Strategy, and Legislative Behavior

Abstract

Institutions have been recognized as a set of critical factors in strategic voting. However, there have been few studies that have substantiated the link between electoral rules and voting decisions. This paper analyzes election data before and after the Taiwanese parliamentary electoral reform in 2008 to show the causal relationship between electoral rules and strategic voting. Given that the local constituencies in the parliamentary election were changed from multi-member to single-member districts while the local council election system remained unchanged, there is an opportunity to apply a difference-in-difference framework to test the relationship. The result indicates that strategic voting is prevalent in almost every constituency. In other words, the majority of votes are concentrated on the candidates from two major parties. By using individual-level survey data, I also find that individuals who have previously voted for minor parties are more likely to engage in strategic voting. Furthermore, a significant number of these individuals promptly changed their party affiliation after the reform was implemented.

Author

• Tse-Luen Wu, University of Rochester