Retrospective and prospective voting in a one-party-dominant democracy: Taiwan's 1996 presidential election

Several theories of voting behavior suggest that voters evaluate candidates in an election based on the candidates' past performance and future promis e. There is a dispute in the theory and ambiguity in empirical evidence abo ut which direction Voters look when choosing candidates: do voters weigh pa st performance or future promise more heavily in the voting booth? This pap er contributes empirical support to the prospective voting model by testing both retrospective and prospective voting in a pivotal case: the 1996 Taiw an presidential election. Taiwan's 1996 election represents the first popul ar election of the president from a field of candidates that included the l ong-ruling KMT party incumbent, Lee Tent-hui. In the Taiwan presidential el ection, voter evaluations of Lee's prospects for managing the economy in th e future prove statistically significant as a predictor of voter choice. Vo ter evaluations of recent economic conditions do not appear closely related to voter choice. Voters' perceptions of the candidates' abilities to influ ence ethnic relations, domestic safety, and international security are bett er predictors of the vote than past ethnic relations or past security probl ems, even in the face of Communist China's pre- election aggression toward Taiwan.