What Do the Polls Say? Predicting the Winner of the 2008 Taiwan Presidential Election

This is a CDDRL's Special Seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program. In this seminar, Dr. Chia-hung Tsai will present up-to-date survey data regarding Taiwan’s 2008 presidential election. He will also discuss the dynamics of the presidential campaign and their implications for prospective voters.  

Chia-hung Tsai is Associate Research Fellow of the Election Study Center at the National Chengchi University. He received his PhD in political science from the Ohio State University, 2003, and he worked at the Election Study Center since then. Chia-hung Tsai’s research interest lies in voting behavior and methodology, especially Bayesian statistics. Winner of the “NCCU Outstanding Research Award,” he has published articles in various professional journals including Party Politics, International Political Science Review, Journal of Election Studies (Chinese), and so forth. Currently, he is conducting a multi-year project on voting behavior, public opinion, and public policies in Taiwan. The main focus of this project is to examine the quality of Taiwan’s young democracy. Specifically, this project investigates the extent to which public policies respond to public opinion.