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Coordinative Advantages of State Resources under SNTV: The Case of Taiwan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2012

NATHAN F. BATTO
Affiliation:
Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
HENRY A. KIM
Affiliation:
University of Arizona

Abstract

Success in SNTV requires not merely winning but also coordinating votes. Governing parties often reap coordination advantage thanks to their control of the state and its resources. Since governing parties in authoritarian states enjoy greater control over the state and its resources, we argue that they should also enjoy magnified coordinative advantages in SNTV election. Of course, authoritarian regimes often use state resources to win more votes; we argue that, in SNTV, in addition to winning more votes, those votes can also be distributed more effectively. We demonstrate our claims using election data from both local and national SNTV elections in Taiwan from 1954 to 2005.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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