Moral Voters, Political Choices and Mobilized Reasoning: An Exploratory Study on Taiwan's 2024 Presidential Election

• In Event: Intersections between Public Opinion and Political Behavior

Abstract

Political scientists have agreed that partisan voters act and talk based on their partisan-motivated reasoning. But we know little about how moral stances play a role in such a sense-- modifying partisanship or being modified by partisanship from the literature. We know even less about how independent voters form their choices without partisan cues and how much they will base their choices on moral stances when partisan-motivated reasoning becomes less prevalent. 

Taiwan's 2024 presidential election campaign season is a laboratory for observing such phenomena. Taiwanese voters will witness a game where none of the four candidates, even the one from the ruling party, owns a vote share of over 45%. Even though this could be a good case for confirming that lower partisanship leads to split and strategic voting, this project explores **how** voters form their strategic voting decisions during the campaign season. With the first-hand opinion data collected via a web platform from Oct. 2023 to January 2024, I examined how well (as well as how limited) the moral foundations theory (MFT) and its moral foundations questionnaire (MFQ) explain both partisan and non-partisan voters' formation of preferences and vote choices leading up to the 2024 election. By employing multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), I consider this study an ideal chance to inspect the black box of independent voters' reasoning. The presentation and discussion of the findings will shed light on the literature on social polarization and the role of partisanship in the post-Covid era.

Author

• Frank C. S. Liu, National Sun Yat-Sen University