For foreign and Mainland China spouses who were born in foreign countries but immigrated to Taiwan due to marriage, they probably come to Taiwan to pursue a better life and thus become our neighbors. However, owing to the differences in cultural background between them and the Taiwanese people, many misunderstanding and conflicts often happened between the early immigrants and the local habitants. There are many relevant studies discussing the living problems of those foreign and Chinese brides, but it is rare to see studies about their rights and obligations. This research applies the theory of ¡§funnel of causality¡¨ (Campbell, Converse, Millers & Strokes) to explore the voting behavior of the foreign and Chinese brides. The main concept of the theory is to regard party identification as a long-term and constant attitude factor. Therefore, it thought that party identification is the determinant affecting the voting decision, while the candidate orientation is only a short-term factor to influence the voting decision, and such decision is emotional and lacking of rational judgement. As to issue orientation, it has only limited influence on the decisions of voters, but in the wake of the gradual declination of the voters¡¦ party identification, ¡§candidate orientation¡¨ and ¡§issue orientation¡¨ turn to be the primary factors to influence the voters¡¦ decisions. This study uses party identification, candidate orientation, electoral issue, and political socialization as the four observable variants and carries out questionnaire investigation by using the quantified statistics. The results of the statistical analysis found that, in cognition of voters¡¦ voting behavior, political party preference is not a factor to influence the voting behavior, nor the Candidate¡¦s qualification creates notable differences. However, it was found that the foreign and Mainland China spouses paid much attention to the political views of candidates. The more they integrate into Taiwan¡¦s society, the more recognition of Taiwan they have. In view of the low voting turnout rate, this study proposes that the government should enhance the electoral advertising and promotion in order to increase the voting turnout rate. Furthermore, the government should show more concern about the foreign and Chinese brides and combine the power of the local communities to enable those foreign spouses to melt into Taiwan¡¦s society earlier and further to exercise and fulfill their rights and obligations. Finally, it is hope that the government may treat all Mainland China spouses and foreign spouses equally without discrimination, and help the Mainland China spouses to get their identify cards soon as the foreign spouses do. In this way, those foreign and Mainland China spouses will enjoy the same basic human rights as the local people, contribute their share toward Taiwan, and never be the underprivileged group in this society any more. Keywords: Foreign bride, voting behavior, political socialization

¡§Strategic voting behavior¡¨ means that when there are three or more candidates competing in one certain election, voters, under rational consideration, think that their most favorite candidate has no chance of winning at all, and recognize that their voting for this candidate will cause their least favorite candidate to win; therefore, voters can only choose to vote for their second favorite candidate to avoid from their most undesirable outcome. In the 2000 presidential election, the three major contenders of Lien Chan, Chen Shui-bian, and James Soong were equally competitive, which created a context of strategic voting. This study therefore used ¡§strategic voting¡¨ as a main theme to investigate the voters¡¦ voting behavior in the 2000 presidential election. The present study analyzed data at both macro and micro levels. At the macro level, it was found that lots of KMT¡¦s votes shifted to the campaigns of either Chen Shui-bian or James Soong, which more or less demonstrated voters¡¦ low stability for partisan voting in this election, and to some degree was a result of voters¡¦ strategic voting behavior. At the micro level, it revealed that Lien Chan, who was considered the most competent, was always voters¡¦ second best choice before the election. That is, voters felt neutral towards Lien Chan, who was neither voters¡¦ most favorite candidate nor the least desired one, and additionally Lien Chan had long been the weakest in the poll, which made him the most likely to be abandoned. The result of the election also showed that among the voters who adopted the strategy of ¡§abandoning someone to save another¡¨, fewest chose to ¡§save Lien Chan.¡¨ Hence, voters did have ¡§strategic voting behavior¡¨ in the 2000 presidential election, and Lien Chan obviously claimed the highest percentage of voters¡¦ abandoned candidate.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 173-183). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-56).

This thesis aims to examine both the extent to which political opinion polling can contribute to democratic processes in different countries, and the degree to which polling is tied to the developing processes of restructuring and transition which contemporary advanced societies are tending to undergo. Specifically, the examination will focus on political opinion polling in both 'late-capitalist' and 'post-communist' societies. In doing so, it will consider two key related issues: firstly, how shifting political contexts impact upon the ability of polls to carry out their perceived tasks of measuring public opinion and contributing to political democratisation; and secondly, whether polls extend or inhibit democratic processes. The principal concept around which this analysis is organised is that of 'Complex Politics'. This has as its core an analytical framework which focuses upon those aspects of political systems similar to both late-capitalist and post-communist societies, which impinge directly upon political opinion polling. These are Political Culture, Party Systems, Mechanisms for Political Participation, and the Policy Process. It is argued that, despite the obvious differences in context and recent history, the complexity of contemporary political envirorunents in which polls operate in both types of political system are such as to display broadly similar problems for pollsters. In order to project the course of development of polling, the likely issues that pollsters will need to address in the future, and the shape and nature of the links between polling and the processes of democratisation in late-capitalist societies, it is instructive to refer to the current experiences of pollsters and polling in the transitional states of Central and Eastern Europe. As the processes of political pluralisation and restructuring take place in these former communist societies, this will help to identify the major problems which pollsters are likely to face in countries such as Britain and elsewhere in continental Europe when attempting to gauge political opinions, beliefs, orientations and behaviour as their own societies become more variable and complex.

This thesis aims to describe and analyse how young people reason around voting and voter turnout in two different national contexts - Sweden and the United States - and how the reasoning might differ. The material has been gathered in qualitative interviews with students in both countries and ordered according to a typology of four theories, namely rational choice, new institutionalism, social identity and norm theories. Findings indicate that there is much difference in the reasoning between the countries while similarities may be due to them being students of similar ages. In the US, young people reason more according to rational institutionalism, about the system itself and seem to be rather cynical about it while the Swedish youths reason more in terms of institutional norms and seem to be satisfied with the system of voting at large. This thesis develops previous research by adding qualitative findings to hard facts which can be used to understand voters and national contexts more thoroughly.

This study examines the impact of perceived personality traits of the political party leaders on voting decisions in the 2000 Canadian federal election, replicating Richard Johnston's research that is based on the 1997 election. Employing data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study (CES), the research uses Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis to estimate how evaluations of leader personality traits over two aggregated dimensions - competence and character - moved votes. The changes in the design of the 2000 CES from prior years created many difficulties in assessing voters' evaluations of the party leaders and limited the comparability of the results from the study. The key methodological differences are: (1) leaders were not evaluated individually; (2) it did not measure the degree of applicability of the trait labels; (3) it included significantly fewer leader personality questions, and (4) the "new ideas" variable does not fall squarely into either the competence and character domains and seems to favour the new Alliance Party leader. This study finds that leader effects are more critical to the parties struggling for their political survival. A counterfactual party leader-switching exercise suggests that the distance between the frontrunner parties and the others was too great for leader-switching effects to make a difference in determining which parties would form the government and the Official Opposition and whether the winning party would form a majority or minority government. Joe Clark improved his party's standing during the campaign and helped it to retain its official party status while evaluations of Stockwell Day declined. The relevance of judgements of Day and Clark on pre-election vote intentions moved in the same direction as voters' respective evaluations of the leaders over the campaign. This study confirms that campaigns can have an effect on voters. The study supports earlier research findings that suggests that Canadian elections are vulnerable to leader effects. Conventional wisdom that is driven by the media's focus on the personalities suggests that leaders are significant factors in Canadian federal elections, but the empirical research reported in this study and others before it suggest otherwise.

In November 2007 the right of centre Saskatchewan Party defeated Saskatchewan’s social democratic party, which had been in government for seventeen years. Unlike previous defeats, the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) loss in 2007 clearly showed that a new intra-urban political polarization in Saskatoon and Regina had emerged with the outer suburbs abandoning the NDP and the core areas maintaining previous levels of support. This study employs correlation analysis and logistic and linear regression analysis, using survey data from the 2003 and 2007 general election campaigns from Saskatchewan. Urban zones are constructed based on the morphological (urban form) hypothesis in order to create categories for spatial analysis. The different types of urban places are analyzed incorporating survey and Statscan data. Statistically significant differences between the urban zones are discussed in light of possible mechanisms found in the literature in order to explain recent political turns in Saskatchewan.

In November 2007 the right of centre Saskatchewan Party defeated Saskatchewan’s social democratic party, which had been in government for seventeen years. Unlike previous defeats, the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) loss in 2007 clearly showed that a new intra-urban political polarization in Saskatoon and Regina had emerged with the outer suburbs abandoning the NDP and the core areas maintaining previous levels of support. This study employs correlation analysis and logistic and linear regression analysis, using survey data from the 2003 and 2007 general election campaigns from Saskatchewan. Urban zones are constructed based on the morphological (urban form) hypothesis in order to create categories for spatial analysis. The different types of urban places are analyzed incorporating survey and Statscan data. Statistically significant differences between the urban zones are discussed in light of possible mechanisms found in the literature in order to explain recent political turns in Saskatchewan.

What is the meaning of the right to vote, and the concurrent right to play a meaningful role in the electoral process as guaranteed by s. 3 and informed by the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? These questions, and whether the current Canada Elections Act adequately respects them are considered in light of jurisprudence concerning democratic rights including the Supreme Court's recent Figueroa decision. / The English Jenkins Commission is examined, as are the lessons to be learned from the experiences of Germany, South Africa, Italy, and New Zealand with proportional representation voting. At home, the tentative steps toward voting reform in Quebec, British Columbia, PEI, and the work of the Law Commission of Canada are discussed. Finally, basic goals for voting reform are suggested and measured against model recommendations. The prospects for reform ultimately depend on a rebalancing of the values of democracy and power.