Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Political Science

Sub-Department

College of Arts and Sciences

First Advisor

Fuh-sheng Hsieh

Abstract

My dissertation explores the effect of information sources (especially the media) on retrospective and prospective national economic evaluations and their subsequent voter choice in comparative perspective. I examine whether the level of democracy and level of economic development are associated with the effect of information sources on economic voting across nations. The results indicate that consolidated democracies and countries with middle income (GDP per capita: $1,000~$9,999) are most strongly associated with both retrospective and prospective national economic evaluations. However, the level of democracy and economic development are not associated with voter choice. The comparative case study of Mexico and Taiwan substantiates the claim that countries with consolidated democracy can have a stronger effect on national economic evaluations than those with a lower level of democracy. Given that Taiwan has a higher level of democracy (the polity score of Mexico and Taiwan are 8 and 10 in 2012 respectively), the media effect on economic voting is more influential in Taiwan than in Mexico.

Rights

© 2016, Chia-yin Wei

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