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This paper tests three democratic peace theory hypotheses for East Asian political cooperation and a fourth commercial exchange hypothesis. H1 suggests that like regimes will have excellent bilateral relations, H2 suggests that unlike regimes will have poor bilateral relations, and H3 draws on Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder to say that democracies will have poor bilateral relations with nondemocracies. Finally, H4 suggests that there is a positive correlation between two regimes' economic ties and their bilateral relations. A robust test of the respective hypotheses (using a pool of nineteen bi-national East Asian dyads that includes China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) provides the most durable support for H4. Economic linkages are defined via a mathematical formula that incorporates the volume of cross-national trade and the base 10 logarithm of each regime’s GDP. Political contestation is defined via a score that incorporates Polity IV data and a measure of Internet openness from the OpenNet Initiative. This test finds H4 is the most convincing explanation for the variation in bilateral relations among the dyads; in addition, the relationship is considerably more robust when the China-Taiwan dyad is excluded. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic voting plays a central role when one theories about the direct links between economic conditions and the political decisions of voters. In the research of developed democratic countries, such as in Western Europe and the United States, economic voting is used to predict the voting behavior of citizens. Unfortunately, scholars tend to pay less attention to newly emerging democratic countries, e.g. Latin America, Eastern Europe and East Asia. The research generally avoids using democratization as an explanation for the emergence of economic voting. Among these countries, the relatively consolidated and stable democratization in Eastern Asia provides an essential case for examining the emergence of economic voting. There is insufficient research about economic voting in this field, so some scholars conclude that there is no economic voting in East Asia. Therefore, I assume democratization will lead to economic voting, especially in Japan, Korea and Taiwan; because all these countries went through a similar democratization process—shift of power followed by economic transformation. Overall, this research will contribute to going generalization about democratic theory and economic voting and how they compare with other Third-Wave democracies. According to the above hypotheses, I will use a cross-national method in my research. Moreover, the observed cases will focus on the important national election outcomes in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan before and after the transfer of power in these countries. In addition, I will especially observe the short-term voting behavior changes, and demonstrate whether significant economic events reinforce economic voting. The dependent variable is the difference in percentage of votes for the incumbent party and for the challenging party. I want to observe if bad economic conditions will punish incumbents and reward challengers. The independent variables in the research include economic evaluation, social cleavage and partisanship. Multivariable regression will be used in the research to estimate the effect of independent variables on the percentage of the vote. In addition, we use some demographic data as control, such as education, gender and age and so on. I have chosen the data of voting percentage results from the statistical electoral data in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as my dependent variables. As for the independent variables, I employed the database of the East Asia Barometer for this research. It includes updated data for my cases and contains both complete economic evaluations and partisanship questions in the questionnaire. I will use the results of the survey for analysis in this research. The ultimate goal is to acquire an understanding of the relationship between democratization and economic voting, and then determine whether East Asian democratization leads to economic voting. It will become the foundation to research the emergence of economic voting in all newly emerging democratic countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how political institutions and incentives can help us understand the timing and nature of decentralization reforms in two highly centralized unitary states in East Asia, Japan and South Korea. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]