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Ethnic Ties, Organized Opposition and Voter Defection in Authoritarian Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2021

Chao-Yo Cheng Open the ORCID record for Chao-Yo Cheng [Opens in a new window]  and
Yi-Tzu Lin Open the ORCID record for Yi-Tzu Lin [Opens in a new window]
Chao-Yo Cheng*
Affiliation:
Department of International Development and Department of Methodology, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
Yi-Tzu Lin
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan
*
*Corresponding author. Email: c.cheng23@lse.ac.uk
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Abstract

Existing studies of ethnic voting mainly focus on democratic elections. In electoral autocracies, politically subordinate ethnicity can help citizens coordinate against the incumbent. However, we argue that collective action will be constrained when the group grows large, as it becomes costly for its members to form common behavioural norms and carry out effective sanctions through shared ethnic ties under authoritarian repression. Drawing on unique historical surveys in Taiwan, we study how Taiwanese ethnicity and local ethnic demography jointly induced voters' defection against the hegemonic KMT regime. We find that the pro-defection or anti-incumbent effect of Taiwanese ethnicity fell as the share of Taiwanese citizens in a township increased. However, the relative size of the Taiwanese group no longer undermined pro-defection ethnic voting after the KMT lifted the ban on opposition parties. Our results illustrate that formal organizations play a critical role in sustaining the informational salience of ethnicity in the elections.

Keywords

Taiwanethnic votingnon-democratic electionspolitical partiesdemocratization
Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , July 2023 , pp. 497 - 515
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Government and Opposition Limited

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