Political Boundary and Solidarity: Evidence from Taiwan’s Social Security Reform

• In Event: Public Opinion and Policy Formation in Taiwan

Abstract

Existing welfare state literature emphasizes the importance of social solidarity, which refers to the willingness of community members to share risks, in welfare state development. A clear comprehension of the nation's boundaries, where individuals can identify with whom they are sharing risks, is a fundamental prerequisite for establishing social solidarity. In established democracies, the nation's construction predates the development of the welfare state, making the issue of political community boundaries less prominent. However, for emerging democracies, the process of nation-building is often ongoing and closely intertwined with the expansion of welfare states. In these cases, where the boundary of national borders can still be a matter of contention, it becomes crucial to examine how different understandings of the limits of one's political community enable or restrict the progress of welfare state development.

We study this question within the context of Taiwan. In Taiwan, there is an ongoing debate about the boundaries of the collective identity. Some argue that the political community's territory is limited to Taiwan and the four nearby islands. On the other hand, others do not reject a political community that includes Mainlanders. The contested boundaries of the political community in Taiwan provide an excellent opportunity to examine the impact of national identity on the development of the welfare state.

In this article, we focus on the case of pensions. Population aging has created pressure on social security sustainability and demands retrenchment reforms in Taiwan. In social security, risk is redistributed not only across different social groups but also across different generations. We investigate the impact of national identity on social security reform. Using both observational data (from the 2019 Taiwan Image Survey) and an original survey experiment conducted in May 2023, this paper presents the following findings. First, people whose perceived national boundary is only limited to Taiwan identity show increased support for institutional solidarity for the social security regime. However, this clear sense of national boundary does not exclusively lead to greater support for social solidarity. Experimental evidence underscores that cues that emphasize the magnitude of demographic change and the suffering of different generations also increase support for institutional solidarity among national boundary clearists, but do not increase their support for social solidarity.


Keywords: national identity, social security, intergenerational solidarity, intergenerational conflict, welfare state, Taiwan

Authors

• Wei-Ting Yen, Franklin & Marshall College

• Ming-Jui Yeh