儘管民主政治是一種不夠完美的制度，但仍係人類社會迄今為止最能尊重與保障個人平等自由生活方式的一種政治制度，故而在廿世紀下半葉廣獲世界各國青睞。透過政治文化的觀點，我們瞭解到民主政治的建立與發展，一般人民是否具有民主的精神與素養，往往要比政治制度或典則是否完善，更具有決定性的影響。因此，本研究將「民主」定義為一種生活方式，希望從人們對民主內涵之覺察與認識，從蘊含於其日常行為價值觀中的表現，探討民主價值成為個人生活方式的可能影響。 東亞大陸上的華人社會，不論是中國大陸或台灣都肯定民主的價值，也都朝民主的方向邁進，然而二者選擇之路徑不同，歷經之階段亦不相同。台灣已成功地從威權體制轉型為民主政治，大陸則在改革開放的驅動下，著手施行有中國特色的社會主義民主建設。民主轉型能否成為兩岸未來和平對話的契機？值得我們關注。 兩岸青年雖然生活於不同的教育環境，但是資訊時代為他（她）們的成長提供了日益趨同的國際舞台。在現代化民主潮流的衝激下，他（她）們習得怎樣的民主內涵，對兩岸關係未來的發展，勢必會有重要的影響。因而本研究關切兩岸大學生政治學習的內容如何，其民主意識的內涵有何異同，兩岸大學生會有怎樣的政治參與意向，以及社會化媒介對其民主意識和政治參與意向所可能的影響。 經由內容分析法比較兩岸大學生高中時期政治學習的內容，發現兩岸的教育重心都在強化政治知識和政治策略，但本質意涵仍有顯著差異：其中各自對「政治社群」的認同對象不同、「政治知識」的來源不同、「政治策略」的性質不同，猶有甚者，彼此教科書對「民主價值」的認知與詮釋差異甚大。大陸方面的政治教科書對意識形態的強調與堅持比台灣遠甚。 本研究同時以態度量表進行經驗調查，以立意取樣的方式，在兩岸選取政治大學、成功大學、東吳大學和北京大學、人民大學、（廣州）中山大學等六所學校共1100餘位學生作為對比分析。經過冗長的統計分析與論證，本研究所提出的各項假設獲得了部分的驗證。 根據本研究發現，兩岸大學生影響其民主意識與政治參與意向的原因容或有所不同，但從調查結果可知，雖然兩岸在政治、經濟體制上分離了五十餘年，但本研究所調查的兩岸大學生在許多方面都呈現了相同之處，並且對於民主仍充滿了肯定，甚至大陸大學生對於民主的渴望猶勝生活在自由風氣中的台灣大學生。筆者認為，這樣的共識讓兩岸有了對話的平台，在未來的兩岸關係中，這群政治與社會的菁英勢必能由此發展出新的出路。 / Democratic political system which has been widely accepted in the second half of the 20th century all over the world has played the best role in respecting and guaranteeing individuals’ equal and liberal lifestyle so far, though it might not be the most perfect. Though the view of political culture, we acknowledge that in the establishment and development of democratic politics, whether the ordinary people have democratic spirits usually has more crucial effects than whether the political regimes and norms are flawless. Therefore in this research, the writer defines ‘democracy’ as ‘a lifestyle’ and tries to discuss the possible effect of democratic lifestyle through people’s awareness and understanding of democratic connotation and their daily behavior reflecting their values. In the Chinese society on the Eastern Asia continent, both the Mainland China and Taiwan approve the democratic value and move toward the democracy. But they chose different ways, either the developing stages. Taiwan has successfully changed from the authoritarian system to democratic politics while the Mainland China has been performing the China Style Socialist Democracy Construction in the motivation of the market-oriented Reformation. Can the democratic transition create a peacefully conversational opportunity? It’s worth paying attention. The youth of both sides are living in the different educational environment, but the Information Age provides them an international stage more and more similar. By the wash of democratic wave, what democratic connotation they have learned will make a big impact on the cross-straight relationship in the future. So this research concerns on the undergraduates’ political study contents, the differences between their democratic connotation, their political participation wills and the probably effects of socialization media on their democratic conscious and political participation wills. After comparing the political study contents in high school by content analysis method, it is found that the educational cores of both sides are political knowledge and political policy, but they have distinct essences in who the political community identifies, where the political knowledge comes, what the political policy means, and the most different, how the democratic value is explained. The political textbook of the Mainland China enhances the ideology more often than Taiwan. Meanwhile, in this research the scaling method was adopted to execute the experience survey. With the purpose-sampling method, more than 1100 students of National Cheng Chi University, National Cheng Kung University and Soochow University in Taiwan and Peking University, Renmin University and Sun Yet-san University in the Mainland China are chosen. Through the tough statistic analysis and demonstration, the hypotheses of this research have been large partly proved. According to the research founds, in both sides the factors which effect the undergraduates’ democratic conscious and political participation wills are different. This survey also tells us that the undergraduates in both sides has a lot in common although have been politically and economically separated for more than 50 years. They both feel very positive towards democracy, further more, the Mainland China undergraduates are more eager to democracy than Taiwan undergraduates who are living the liberal atmosphere. The author believes that this common opinion constructs the talk bridge between the Straights. In the future, these political and social elites will develop a new peaceful path to change the present vague relationship between both sides through the democratic way.

Prior work provides large evidence that civic duty to vote represents a key predictor of electoral participation. Moreover, the analysis of civic duty questions from extant surveys reveals that many individuals feel the moral obligation to participate in elections. However, is civic duty the result of rationalization, meaning that those who voted in an election are likely to report a belief in the duty to vote, while those who abstained are likely to report that voting is not a duty, but rather a choice? Also, where does the sense of civic duty to vote come from? In this doctoral dissertation, I provide an answer to those questions. More specifically, in Chapter 1, I investigate the extent to which duty is stable in search of evidence on the rationalization of duty. In this analysis, I rely on structural equation models, which I fit to unique, nine-wave panel data from Spain and the United Kingdom. I find that civic duty is a very stable attitude, implying that, while some rationalization is possible, duty is unlikely to be strongly driven by individuals’ previous voting behavior. In Chapter 2, I examine whether civic education in school contributes to the development of duty. I focus on civic education as a potential source of duty given its role in transmitting social norms to new generations, and its influence on duty-related attitudes like political interest, implying that civic education likely contributes to the development of duty. To examine the connection between civic education and duty, I use data from the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, as it represents the largest survey research containing civic duty and civic education measures. My analyses reveal that three common forms of civic education (civics courses, active learning strategies, and open classroom environment) contribute to predicting duty, but that civics courses exert the largest effect on duty. i In Chapter 3, I investigate the role of compulsory voting in the development of duty. I examine the relationship between compulsory voting and duty given the possibility that compulsory voting signals that a “good” citizen must vote, and, in this way, that compulsory voting fosters duty. I analyze this relationship by leveraging the abolition of compulsory voting in Chile (in 2012), which I explore with synthetic control models and Latinobarometer data. With this empirical strategy, I find evidence that compulsory voting positively affects duty. In Chapter 4, I investigate if corruption bears an effect on duty. I focus on the relationship between corruption and duty given the chances that corruption reduces individuals’ incentives to believe in the duty to vote, and, consequently, that corruption affects duty. I examine the link between corruption and duty through mediation tests, where corruption represents the independent variable, duty the mediating variable and turnout the dependent variable. Using data from the Making Electoral Democracy Work project, I find that, unlike civic education and compulsory voting, corruption exerts a marginal effect on duty. / Plusieurs travaux montrent que le devoir civique constitue un prédicteur clé de la participation électorale. De plus, les recherches antérieures indiquent que le sentiment d’obligation de voter est répandu parmi un grand nombre de citoyens. Cependant, le devoir civique est-il le résultat d’une rationalisation de la part des électeurs ? Autrement dit, ceux qui ont voté lors d’une élection sont-ils plus enclins à dire que le vote est un devoir plutôt qu’un choix ? En outre, quelles sont les origines du sens du devoir civique de voter ? Dans cette thèse de doctorat, j’offre une réponse à ces questions. Plus précisément, dans le premier chapitre, j’examine dans quelle mesure le sens du devoir civique est stable afin de déterminer s’il y a, oui ou non, un phénomène de rationalisation parmi l’électorat. Je m’appuie sur des modèles d'équations structurelles et sur des données de panel espagnoles et britanniques comprenant neuf vagues. Je trouve que le devoir civique est très stable, ce qui indique qu’il y aurait peu de rationalisation en ce qui a trait à cette attitude politique. Dans le second chapitre, j’examine si l’éducation civique contribue au développement du devoir civique. Je me concentre sur l'éducation civique en raison du rôle que joue celle-ci dans la transmission des normes sociales aux nouvelles générations et de son influence sur les attitudes liées au sens du devoir comme l'intérêt politique. Pour déterminer la nature du lien entre éducation civique et devoir civique, j’utilise les données de l’International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) de 2016. Il s’agit de la plus grande enquête sur le devoir civique et l’éducation civique. Mes analyses montrent que trois formes courantes d’éducation civique (les cours d’éducation civique, les stratégies d'apprentissage actif et un environnement de classe ouvert) contribuent à prédire le sentiment du devoir civique de voter chez les individus, mais que les cours d’éducation civique disposent du plus grand impact. Dans le troisième chapitre, j’étudie l’effet du vote obligatoire sur le devoir civique. J’examine la corrélation entre le vote obligatoire et le devoir civique dans la mesure où cette institution politique peut signaler aux individus qu’un « bon » citoyen doit voter. Prenant l’abolition du vote obligatoire au Chili comme cas d’analyse, j’utilise des modèles de contrôle synthétiques et les données des Latinobarometers afin de mesurer le lien causal entre le vote obligatoire et le devoir civique. Je trouve que le vote obligatoire affecte positivement le devoir civique. Dans le quatrième chapitre, j’étudie l’impact de la corruption sur le devoir civique. Je me concentre sur la corrélation entre la corruption et le devoir civique puisque les individus risquent d’avoir un sentiment de devoir moindre dans les contextes de corruption politique. J’examine la corrélation en question à travers des tests de médiation et les données du projet Making Electoral Democracy Work (MEDW). Je trouve qu’au contraire de l’éducation civique et du vote obligatoire, la corruption affecte marginalement le devoir civique.