Tianditu: China's first official online mapping service

Tianditu is China’s first state-sponsored web mapping service. Beijing considers Tianditu part and parcel of its burgeoning endeavor to build a ‘digital China’. The Chinese state created Tianditu to regain some of the ground lost when its monopoly on geographic information was effectively broken. This effort goes hand in hand with Beijing’s intention to compete with and shrink the space occupied by Google mapping services (Google Maps, Google Earth, etc.). Although Tianditu does bestow a certain degree of power on civilian users to interact with and explore geographic data, for political and social reasons the Chinese state tightly controls Tianditu. It is a tool that the regime uses to maintain political power and push ideologies it supports. This type of top-down reinforcement of static geographic knowledge is a far cry from the concept of civilian empowerment as understood in liberal democracies

A Longitudinal Historical Population Database in Asia. The Taiwanese Historical Household Registers Database (1906–1945)

For the past 35 years, the Taiwan Historical Household Registers Database (THHRD) has been significant for historical demographic research on Asia. In recent years, researchers have continued adding new demographic information to the database. This allows for the expansion of research on the topic of historical households in the region. However, there are still many issues to address in the field of Asian historical demography. This paper provides a brief introduction on the uses of THHRD for future research

The Geographical Contexts in Taiwan's Presidential Elections

大多數選舉研究將選民原子化而忽略其地理脈絡。為了提供地理脈絡影響臺灣選舉的證據，本論文結合有關 2004 年總統選舉的個體資料與地區資料，將選民放回到地方中。結果顯示，相似的選民住在不同的地方，投下不同的選票。首先，人們居住在福佬人比例愈高的鄉鎮裡，愈容易形成臺灣人認同；居住在外省人比例愈高的鄉鎮裡，愈不容易接受臺灣人認同。而臺灣人認同者投給民進黨的可能性較高。再者，國中以下學歷的選民若居住在愈貧困的鄉鎮裡，愈容易投給相對偏左的民進黨。然而，高中職以上學歷的選民若居住在愈貧困的鄉鎮裡，愈容易懲罰執政的民進黨。此外，經驗證據也支持選民在地方社會網絡中與其他人互動的論點。首先，在 2000 年民進黨得票率愈高的氛圍裡，人們愈容易與民進黨支持者討論重要事情，進而使原本未投給民進黨的選民容易投靠民進黨；原本投給民進黨的選民不容易背離民進黨。再者，當兩地人群的互動愈密切時，兩地民進黨得票率的變化幅度愈相關。總之，將地理脈絡考慮進來，能夠更完善地解釋投票行為與選舉結果。Most of previous electoral studies atomized voters as detached from their geographical contexts. To provide evidences that geography does matter in voting in Taiwan, this dissertation shall put voters in their places by combining individual and ecological data of the presidential election of Taiwan in 2004. The findings show that similar people vote differently in different places. First, people who identify themselves as Taiwanese are more likely to vote DPP, while the higher the percentage of Hohlo in a township, the residents are more likely identify themselves as Taiwanese; the higher the percentage of mainlanders in a township, it is then less likely that residents identify themselves as Taiwanese. Second, residents with senior high school education or above are more likely to vote DPP in more affluent townships, while those with junior high education or below are more likely to vote DPP in more deprived townships. Moreover, the empirical evidences also support that people interacting with others in local social networks. First, residents are more likely to discuss important things with DPP supporters in the townships which DPP got higher vote share in 2000, while these conversations encourage non-DPP voters swinging to DPP and prevent DPP voters defecting from DPP in 2004. Second, the more the interactions between residents of two townships, the closer the correlation of changes of DPP vote share between these two townships. Therefore, voting behaviours and election outcomes can be better explained by including geographical contexts into consideration

The Transition of Taiwan's Political Geography

This article reveals that the pan-blue camp has traditionally enjoyed a stable regional stronghold in eastern and certain parts of northern Taiwan. The pangreen camp was scattered but grew to form a considerable southern bloc from 1998 to 2000. Ethnic distribution can partially explain this geographical variation

Spatial Variation of the DPP's Expansion between Taiwan's Presidential Elections

This study examines the aggregate change of the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) expansion between Taiwan's presidential elections from a spatial perspective. We find that the expansion of the DPP exhibited spatial clustering from 1996 to 2000. Its growth was clustered in southern Taiwan in this period, creating a considerable stronghold in the 2000 presidential election. From 2000 to 2004, however, the hot spots of DPP expansion shifted to central Taiwan and exhibited relatively dispersed patterns.To explain the spatial variation of the DPP's expansion, we incorporate independent variables of income, education, and ethnicity into regression models. The result of non-spatial regression analyses reveals that demographic characteristics played a role in the DPP's expansion. After inserting a spatial lag term into spatial regression models, however, we find that the impacts of some demographic variables have been overridden by the neighborhood effect. This implies that in addition to social cleavages, some campaign mobilization efforts or the socialization of one's network in the context of a broadly defined neighborhood could also have prompted the regional variation of the DPP's expansion. Further research is required to specify the mechanisms that formed the neighborhood effect