Declining Voter Turnout in Taiwan: A Generational Effect?

• In Event: New Theories and New Evidence: Studies of Turnout and Election in Taiwan

Abstract

Taiwan’s voter turnout has declined nearly fifteen percentage points since the early 2000s. All ages voted less in 2016 than before, but the drop was particularly severe among younger voters, who turned out at rates up to twenty percentage points lower than in 2004. Thus Taiwan resembles other mature democracies like the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and Finland, where declining turnout has been shown to afflict the young disproportionately.

Using variants of age-period-cohort analysis, several scholars studying various countries (beginning with Miller 1992) have proposed that youthful cohorts differ from those preceding them, and that the turnout of current young cohorts is likely to remain lower throughout their lifetimes. However, we argue that this youthful disaffection with voting is more difficult to interpret than usually believed, and that it may not represent an inherent attribute of younger cohorts. We review the recent attempts by turnout scholars to solve the identification problem in age-period-cohort analysis, and we show that each statistical procedure that they have adopted relies on implausible assumptions that can substantially bias the results. We conclude that much remains to be done before we can be confident about the future path of young people's turnout in Taiwan and elsewhere.

Authors

• T.Y. Wang, Illinois State University

• Christopher H. Achen, Princeton University