Sovereignty over Taiwan remains one of the most contentious issues of the modern era, and disagreements on both sides of the Taiwan Strait persist to this day. The United States continues to have an active interest in the situation, often playing the role of arbiter between the governments of Beijing and Taipei. With Taiwan’s transition to a multi-party democracy in the late 80s and early 90s, there has been a growing body of research into public opinion on the island. Existing literature has found both party identification and independence/unification support to impact on public attitudes regarding cross-strait security issues. However, the impact of generation is comparatively under examined. The current study builds on recent research into Taiwan’s generational politics. A questionnaire was distributed to members of the public in Taiwan to determine how attitudes vary by generation on the security commitment between the United States and Taiwan. An analysis of survey responses failed to establish a correlation between generation and attitudes towards U.S. support. Nevertheless, generational politics adds nuance to our understanding of public opinion in Taiwan concerning cross-strait relations. / 摘要： 台灣的主權依然是現代最具爭議性的問題之一。至今，兩岸的意見分歧依舊 存在。美國對這樣情況仍然積極地介，而且美國經常扮演在北京政府和台北 之間的仲裁者角色。隨著台灣在八零年代末至九零年代初逐漸轉向自由民主， 對這座島上的輿論研究也越來越多。先前的研究發現，人民支持哪一個黨派， 支持獨立還是統一，影響著大眾對兩岸的輿論。然而，不同世代對於輿論影 響的研究卻比較少。本文所探討的主題是建立在對台灣的 世代政治 （generational politics）的研究上。向台灣民眾進行問卷調查，以了解不同的 世代對於台美安全關係法及其實施是否有不同的見解。從問卷調查分析結果 來看，並未能發現世代的不同與美國 對台灣安保做法的理解之間有顯著相關 性。不過，世代政治有助於了解台灣人民對於在美國介入下兩岸關係的看法。

Since the Civil Rights era, African Americans have come a long way. In the years since the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, there have been dramatic increases in education, political representation, business ownership, and occupational position. Yet, for all of the economic, social and political advances made in the African American community, many young people are still subjected to inferior schools, housing and depressed communities where crime, drugs, police brutality and HIV/AIDS run rampant. As a result, there is a growing tension among the community over the root causes of their predicament and the most adequate way of dealing with them. Based on the generational political theory, this dissertation examines generational effects within the African American community since 1964. From this period, three distinct cohorts are analyzed: the Civil Rights, Integration, and Hip Hop generations. The objective is to determine if different experiences over this period have modified political values, attitudes, and behaviors from one generation to the next. Using data from the 1996 National Black Elections Study (NBES), I examine public policy preferences and political attitudes of African Americans. I use bivariate and multivariate analysis to show generational gaps in attitudes about issues related to major party performance. I draw three major conclusions from this analysis. First, racial group interests remain powerfully important across all cohorts. Next, the Hip Hop generation tends to hold more conservative attitudes than either the Civil Rights or the Integration generations. Finally, I conclude that at the very core of black politics, political values have not changed. However, there is a tension among the Hip Hop cohort between the impending attitudinal changes and the more traditional values of the Civil Rights cohort. The proposed dissertation contributes to the body of research by analyzing generational politics and behavior to better understand the future of black politics in the 21st century.