Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:39:58.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Do Voters Change Their Evaluations of a President? A Taiwanese Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2016

YEN-CHEN TANG  and
ALEX CHUAN-HSIEN CHANG
YEN-CHEN TANG
Affiliation:
Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, [email protected]
ALEX CHUAN-HSIEN CHANG
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, National Taiwan [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze how citizens evaluate their president, especially focusing on why voters lower their evaluations at an individual-level perspective. We assert that citizens raise their evaluations of a new president when their expectations are met and lower their opinions when his or her performance disappoints them. Furthermore, the evaluations of the president are not only affected by a government's economic and diplomatic performance, but are also influenced by individual awareness of salient political issues, the contents of the news, and their own perceived influence on politics. We test the theoretical hypotheses using Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study (TEDS) panel survey data. The statistical results support our theoretical hypotheses and show that when President Ma's performance did not meet respondents’ expectations of unification and economic prosperity, the respondents updated their evaluations of Ma. In addition, it also shows that the extent of respondents’ media exposure and political efficacy are significantly associated with the change in their opinions of Ma.

Keywords

presidential popularityapproval ratingsefficacyeconomic prosperitymedia exposure
Type
Research Article
Information
Japanese Journal of Political Science , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 301 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achen, Christopher (1982), Interpreting and Using Regression, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publication.Google Scholar
Anderson, Christopher, Blais, André, Bowler, Shaun, Donovan, Todd, and Listhaug, Ola (2005), Loser's Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Arcelus, Francisco and Meltzer, Allan H. (1975), ‘The Effect of Aggregate Economic Variables on Congressional Elections’, American Political Science Review, 69 (4): 1232–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Kendall L., Dalton, Russell J., and Hildebrandt, Kai (1981), Germany Transformed: Political Culture and the New Politics, Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. (1990), ‘Panel Effects in the American National Election Studies’, Political Analysis, 8 (1): 1–20.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. (1992), ‘Electioneering in the United States’, in Butler, David and Ranney, Austin (eds.), Electioneering: A Comparative Study of Continuity and Change, Oxford: Clarendon, pp. 244–77.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. (1993), ‘Messages Received: The Political Impact of Media Exposure’, American Political Science Review, 87 (2): 267–85.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. (1999), “Panel Effects in the American National Election Studies.” Political Analysis 8 (1): 1–20.Google Scholar
Becker, Lee B., McCombs, Maxwell E., and McLeod, Jack M. (1975), ‘The Development of Political Cognitions’, in Chaffee, Steven (ed.), Political Communication: Issues and Strategies for Research, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Berry, William D. and Feldman, Stanley (1985), Multiple Regression in Practice, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publication.Google Scholar
Brace, Paul and Hinckley, Barbara (1991), ‘The Structure of Presidential Approval: Constraints within and across Presidencies’, Journal of Politics, 53 (4): 993–1017; MacKuen, Michael B. (1983), ‘Political Drama, Economic Conditions, and the Dynamics of Presidential Popularity’, American Journal of Political Science, 27(2): 165–92.Google Scholar
Brace, Paul, and Hinckley, Barbara (1992), Follow the Leader: Opinion Polls and the Modern Presidents. Basic Books; First Edition.Google Scholar
Brody, Richard A. (1991), Assessing the President, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Brody, Richard and Page, Benjamin (1975), ‘The Impact of Events on Presidential Popularity: The Johnson and Nixon Administrations’, in Wildavsky, Aaron (ed.), Perspectives on the Presidency, Boston, MA: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Campbell, Anguset al. (1954), The Voter Decides: A Study of the Voter's Perceptions, Attitudes, and Behaviors. . .Based on a Survey of the 1952 Election. Row, Peterson and Company; First edition.Google Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., Stokes, Donald E. (1960), The American Voter, New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Craig, Stephen C. (1980), ‘The Mobilization of Political Discontent’, Political Behavior, 2 (2): 189–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, Stephen C., Niemi, Richard G. and Silver, Glenn E. (1990), ‘Political Efficacy and Trust: A Report on the NES Pilot Study Items’, Political Behavior, 12 (3): 289–314.Google Scholar
Cronin, Thomas E. (1980), The State of the Presidency, Boston, MA: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Cummings, Scott (1987), ‘Vulnerability to the Effects of Recession: Minority and Female Workers’, Social Forces, 65 (3): 834–57.Google Scholar
Dominguez, B. (2005), ‘Is It a Honeymoon? An Empirical Investigation of the President's First Hundred Days’, Congress and the Presidency, 32 (1): 63–78.Google Scholar
Easton, David (1965), A Systems Analysis of Political Life, New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Edelman, Murray (1964), The Symbolic Uses of Politics, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Edwards III, George C. (1983), The Public Presidency, New York, NY: St Martin's.Google Scholar
Edwards III, George C., Mitchell, William and Welch, Reed (1995), ‘Explaining Presidential Approval: The Significance of Issue Salience’, American Journal of Political Science, 39 (1): 108–34.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S. (1989), ‘Economic Conditions and the Presidential Vote’, American Political Science Review, 83 (2): 567–73.Google Scholar
Evans, Geoffrey, and Andersen, Robert (2006), “The Political Conditioning of Economic Perceptions.” Journal of Politics Vol. 68 (1): 194–207.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. (1981), Retrospective Voting in American National Elections, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fuchs, Dieter and Klingemann, Hans-Dieter (2003), ‘Citizens and the State: A Changing Relationship?’, in Klingemann, Hans-Dieter and Fuchs, Dieter (eds.), Citizens and the State, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gamson, William A. (1968), Power and Discontent, Homewood, IL: Dorsey.Google Scholar
Graber, Doris A. (1978), ‘Problems in Measuring Audience Effects of the 1976 Debates’, in Bishop, George F. (eds.), The Presidential Debates: Media, Electoral, and Policy Perspectives, New York, NY: Praeger.Google Scholar
Greenstein, Fred (1977), ‘What the Presidency Means to Americans: Presidential “Choice” between Elections’, in Barber, James D. (ed.), Choosing the President, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp. 121–47.Google Scholar
Grossman, Michael B. and Kumar, Martha Joynt (1981), Portraying the President: The White House and the News Media, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Healy, Andrew, and Malhotra, Neil (2013), “Retrospective Voting Reconsidered." Annual Review of Political Science 16: 285–306.Google Scholar
Heclo, Hugh and Salamon, Lester (1981), The Illusion of Presidential Government, Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Hibbing, John R. and Alford, John R. (1981), ‘The Electoral Impact of Economic Conditions: Who is Held Responsible?’, American Journal of Political Science, 25 (3): 423–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hibbs, Douglas A. (1982), ‘President Reagan's Mandate from the 1980 Elections: A Shift to the Right?’, American Politics Research, 10 (4): 387–420.Google Scholar
Hsieh, John Fuh-sheng, Lacy, Dean, and Niou, Emerson M.S.. 1998. “Retrospective and prospective voting in a one-party-dominant democracy: Taiwan's 1996 presidential election.” Public Choice Vol. 97 (3): 383–399Google Scholar
Hughes, William J. (1995), ‘The “Not-So-Genial” Conspiracy: The New York Times and Six Presidential “Honeymoons”, 1953–1993’, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 72 (4): 841–50.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto (1991), Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, Peters, Mark D. and Kinder, Donald R. (1982), ‘Experimental Demonstrations of the “Not-So-Minimal” Consequences of Television News Programs’, American Political Science Review, 76 (4): 848–58.Google Scholar
Kenski, Henry C. (1977), ‘The Impact of Economic Conditions on Presidential Popularity’, Journal of Politics, 39 (3): 764–73.Google Scholar
Kernell, Samuel (1978), ‘Explaining Presidential Popularity: How Ad-Hoc Theorizing, Misplaced Emphasis, and Insufficient Care in Measuring One's Variables Refuted Common Sense and Led Conventional Wisdom down the Path of Anomalies’, American Political Science Review, 72 (2): 506–22.Google Scholar
Kernell, Samuel. (1986), Going public: new strategies of presidential leadership. Washington, D.C.: CQ PressGoogle Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. (1986), ‘Presidential Character Revisited’, in Lau, Richard R. and Sears, David O. (eds.), Political Cognition, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 233–55.Google Scholar
King, Gary (1986), ‘How Not to Lie with Statistics: Avoiding Common Mistakes in Quantitative Political Science’, American Journal of Political Science, 30 (3): 666–87.Google Scholar
Kopalle, Praveen K. and Lehmann, Donald R. (1995), ‘The Effects of Advertised and Observed Quality on Expectations about New Product Quality’, Journal of Marketing Research, 32 (3): 280–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Gerald H. (1971), ‘Short-term Fluctuation in US: Voting Behavior, 1896–1964’, American Political Science Review, 65 (1): 131–43.Google Scholar
Krosnick, Jon A. and Kinder, Donald R. (1990), ‘Altering the Foundations of Support for the President through Priming’, American Political Science Review, 84 (2): 497–512.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael S. (1980), ‘Economic Conditions and Executive Popularity: The French Experience’, American Journal of Political Science, 24 (2): 306–23.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael S. and Lockerbie, Brad (1989), ‘Economics, Votes, Protests: Western European Cases’, Comparative Political Studies, 22 (2): 155–77.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael S. and Bellucci, Paolo (1982), ‘Economic Influences on Legislative Elections in Multiparty Systems: France and Italy’, Political Behavior, 4 (1): 93–107.Google Scholar
MacKuen, Michael B. (1983), ‘Political Drama, Economic Conditions, and the Dynamics of Presidential Popularity’, American Journal of Political Science, 27 (2): 165–92.Google Scholar
MacKuen, Michael B. and Coombs, Steven. L. (1981), ‘More Than News: Media Power in Public Affairs’, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Malhotra, Neil, and Kuo, Alexander G. (2008), “Attributing Blame: The Public's Response to Hurricane Katrina." Journal of Politics 70 (1): 120–35.Google Scholar
Markus, Gregory B. (1988), ‘The Impact of Personal and National Economic Conditions on the Presidential Vote: A Pooled Cross-Sectional Analysis’, American Journal of Political Science, 32 (1): 137–54.Google Scholar
McLeod, Jack M., Becker, Lee B., and Byrnes, James E. (1974), ‘Another Look at the Agenda-Setting Function of the Press’, Communication Research, 1 (2): 131–66.Google Scholar
Monroe, Kristen R. (1984), Presidential Popularity and the Economy. Praeger Publishers Inc.Google Scholar
Mueller, John E. (1970), ‘Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson’, American Political Science Review, 64 (1): 18–34.Google Scholar
Mueller, John. E. (1973), War, Presidents, and Public Opinion, New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Mueller, Edward N. (1977), ‘Behavioral Correlates of Political Support’, American Political Science Review, 71 (2): 454–67.Google Scholar
Mutz, Diana C. (1992), ‘Impersonal Influence: Effects of Representations of Public Opinion on Political Attitudes’, Political Behavior, 14 (2): 89–122.Google Scholar
Norpoth, Helmut and Yantek, Thom (1983), ‘Macroeconomic Conditions and Fluctuations of Presidential Popularity: The Question of Lagged Effects’, American Journal of Political Science, 27 (4): 785–807.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Charles W. and Simon, Dennis M. (1985), ’Promise and Performance: A Dynamic Model of Presidential Popularity’, American Political Science Review, 79 (2): 334–58.Google Scholar
Owens, John R. and Olson, Edward C. (1980), ‘Economic Fluctuations and Congressional Elections’, American Journal of Political Science, 24 (3): 469–93.Google Scholar
Page, Benjamin I. and Shapiro, Robert Y. (1992), The Rational Public, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Parasuraman, Valarie A. Zeithaml and Berry, Leonard L. (1985), ‘A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research’, Journal of Marketing, 49 (3): 41–50.Google Scholar
Popkin, Samuel, Gorman, John W., Phillips, Charles, and Smith, Jeffrey A.. (1976), “Comment: What have you done for me lately? Toward an investment theory of voting.” American Political Science Review 70, (3), 779–805.Google Scholar
Ragsdale, Lyn (1984), ‘The Politics of Presidential Speechmaking, 1949–1980’, American Political Science Review, 78 (4): 971–84.Google Scholar
Rose, Richard, Mishler, William, and Haerpfer, Christian (1998), Democracy and Its Alternatives: Understanding Post-Communist Societies, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Ruth A. and Houston, Michael J. (1982), ‘Script-Based Evaluations of Satisfaction with Services’, in Berry, Leonard, Shostak, G. Lynn, and Upah, Gregory D. (eds.), Emerging Perspectives on Services Marketing, Chicago, IL: American Marketing, pp. 59–62.Google Scholar
Shabad, Goldie and Andersen, Kristi (1979), ‘Candidate Evaluations by Men and Women’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 43 (1): 19–35.Google Scholar
Stimson, James A. (1976), ‘Public Support for American Presidents: A Cyclical Model’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 40 (1): 1–21.Google Scholar
Sigelman, Lee (1979), ‘A Reassessment of the Two Presidencies Thesis’, Journal of Politics, 41 (4): 1195–205.Google Scholar
Winter, James P. and Eyal, Chaim H. (1981), ‘Agenda Setting for the Civil Right Issue’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 45 (3): 376–83.Google Scholar
West, Darrell M. (1981), ‘Polling Effects in Election Campaigns’, Political Behavior, 13 (2): 151–63.Google Scholar