East Asian Democratization andEconomic Voting: Comparing Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Economic voting plays a central role when one theories about the direct links between economic conditions and the political decisions of voters. In the research of developed democratic countries, such as in Western Europe and the United States, economic voting is used to predict the voting behavior of citizens. Unfortunately, scholars tend to pay less attention to newly emerging democratic countries, e.g. Latin America, Eastern Europe and East Asia. The research generally avoids using democratization as an explanation for the emergence of economic voting. Among these countries, the relatively consolidated and stable democratization in Eastern Asia provides an essential case for examining the emergence of economic voting. There is insufficient research about economic voting in this field, so some scholars conclude that there is no economic voting in East Asia. Therefore, I assume democratization will lead to economic voting, especially in Japan, Korea and Taiwan; because all these countries went through a similar democratization process—shift of power followed by economic transformation. Overall, this research will contribute to going generalization about democratic theory and economic voting and how they compare with other Third-Wave democracies. According to the above hypotheses, I will use a cross-national method in my research. Moreover, the observed cases will focus on the important national election outcomes in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan before and after the transfer of power in these countries. In addition, I will especially observe the short-term voting behavior changes, and demonstrate whether significant economic events reinforce economic voting. The dependent variable is the difference in percentage of votes for the incumbent party and for the challenging party. I want to observe if bad economic conditions will punish incumbents and reward challengers. The independent variables in the research include economic evaluation, social cleavage and partisanship. Multivariable regression will be used in the research to estimate the effect of independent variables on the percentage of the vote. In addition, we use some demographic data as control, such as education, gender and age and so on. I have chosen the data of voting percentage results from the statistical electoral data in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as my dependent variables. As for the independent variables, I employed the database of the East Asia Barometer for this research. It includes updated data for my cases and contains both complete economic evaluations and partisanship questions in the questionnaire. I will use the results of the survey for analysis in this research. The ultimate goal is to acquire an understanding of the relationship between democratization and economic voting, and then determine whether East Asian democratization leads to economic voting. It will become the foundation to research the emergence of economic voting in all newly emerging democratic countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]