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An accurate and reliable measure of preferences on the independence-unification issue is indispensable to the study of Taiwanese politics. In the foreseeable future the study of Taiwanese politics and the cross-Strait relations will continue to focus on Taiwanese preferences on the independence-unification issue. These preferences, however, are neither readily identifiable nor easily defined. For many people, it might be a simple and a straightforward choice between for or against Taiwan's independence, but others are less decisive because their preferences are conditional on factors such as China's military threat, the USA security commitment to Taiwan, and China's prospects of becoming democratic and prosperous. In this article I devise a new measure of people's preferences regarding this issue. I show that a large percentage of the people in Taiwan can agree simultaneously to unite with China if China becomes modernized and democratic and to declare independence if China will not use force and peace can be maintained. Because independence and unification are not necessarily mutually exclusive alternatives, this empirical finding questions the appropriateness of the traditional six-point scale one-dimensional representation of Taiwanese preferences on the independence-unification issue.

Taiwan's democratization has placed Taiwan independence as one of the most important issues for its domestic politics and for the security balance in the Taiwan Strait. Surveys have been conducted regularly to track shifts in Taiwanese public sentiment on this issue. This article presents a new measure of the Taiwan independence issue and shows how voters' preferences can be influenced.

Choosing a method of electing a president is often a contentious constitutional issue for newly emerging democracies. The debate focuses largely on two alternative electoral procedures: plurality rule and plurality rule with a runoff. Duverger (1954) argues that plurality rule has a consolidating influence on parties that a runoff rule lacks. This paper focuses on the `psychological effect' identified by Duverger as the principal basis of consolidation, and studies the conditions under which strategic voting can change the sincere voting outcome and identifies the types of voters who should vote strategically under plurality and runoff rules. Three interesting findings can be drawn from the theoretical results. First, strategic voting is needed more often under plurality rule than under runoff rule to render the Condorcet winner the voting outcome. Second, under the plurality rule, strategic voting cannot ensure that a Condorcet winner will win and cannot even preclude a Condorcet loser from winning. Under the runoff rule, however, strategic voting ensures that the Condorcet winner will win, if one exists. Third, it is easier for a third candidate to enter the election and win the race under the plurality rule than under the runoff rule even if the third candidate is not a Condorcet winner.

For more than forty years, Taiwan and mainland China have contested China's sovereignty. At times, this contest has taken the form of military confrontation. More generally, however, it has manifested itself in attempts by the mainland to isolate Taiwan in international affairs. As a consequence, Taiwan's foreign policies have been formulated to deter any military attack by mainland China and to decrease its own diplomatic isolation. The author examines the effectiveness of these foreign policy objectives and Taiwan's security issues. (DÜI-Sen)

A voter's capacity to acquire and retain information moderates the relationship between issues and the vote. Issues differ in their distance from the voter's personal experience. Proximate issues, such as personal economic conditions, affect the vote decisions of highly informed and less informed voters equally. Distant issues, such as national economic conditions and foreign affairs, affect the vote of highly informed voters but not less informed voters. The 2008 presidential election on Taiwan provides a critical test of the effect of information on issue voting. Unification with mainland China versus Taiwan independence is the most important issue in the 2008 election, and voters with higher levels of political information show a larger effect of the issue on their vote. The national economy is also a significant predictor of vote choice, but only for highly informed voters. Personal economic conditions and other proximate issues are not significant predictors of the vote at any information level.