Culture, Citizenship Norms, and Political Participation: Empirical Evidence from Taiwan

Abstract

This study investigates the role of religion in shaping the norms of citizenship from a cultural perspective for an East Asian country that exhibits fundamental differences in social contexts from Western advanced democracies. Using data drawn from the Taiwan Social Change Survey, we find that the Eastern religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Folk Religions are important for explaining the formation of the concept of being a good citizen. This study further examines the relationships between citizenship norms and various conventional and unconventional types of political participation. The empirical results herein suggest that duty-based citizenship and engaged citizenship have significant differences in their effects on political participation.

Do “Good Citizens” fight hate speech online? Effects of solidarity citizenship norms on user responses to hate comments

“…So far, empirical research has uncovered associations between dutiful citizenship norms and traditional institutionalized political participation (e.g., voting or joining a political party) and between engaged citizenship norms (also referred to as selfactualizing citizenship norms; Bennett, 2008) and types of participation that do not directly aim to influence political decision-making, such as community volunteering or consumerism (Chang, 2016;Copeland, 2014). Moreover, research has been concerned with how digital media use is related to citizenship norms and how this may, in turn, affect political participation (Feezell, Conroy, & Guerrero, 2016;Ohme, 2018;Thorson, 2015).…”

A Comparative Approach to Notions of Good Citizenship

“…In Latin America nearly half of students are in this profile with 47.9%, but the percentage of socially-engaged students closely follows with 33.9%. The high percentage of comprehensive students in Asia implies that, in this region, active forms of participation are considered ethical ways of being a good citizen, understanding participation as a moral duty and not only as an action to solve problems (Chang 2016). In Latin America, the dutybased profile concentrates the lowest percentage of students (1.3%), which could be related to historical aspects, such as the less legalistic culture and an oral tradition.…”

“…In a nutshell, different authors have proposed that East Asian countries have a notion of good citizenship strongly linked to duty-based values, due to the importance of Confucianism and Taoism, both of which emphasize the idea of virtue in governance, as well as Buddhism, which emphasizes the notion of good behavior. This contrasts with liberal and communitarian norms more prevalent in Western societies (Chang 2016;Dalton and Ong 2005;Kuang and Kennedy 2014). Secondly, it has been indicated that polarization, understood as the increase of religious, social, gender, or immigrant divisions within a country, is an important factor for understanding the configuration of citizenship, as it may undermine the basic cohesion of a nation (Esteban et al 2012;Esteban and Ray 2011).…”

Democracy, aid, and diffusion: A normative approach to the hybrid regime

“…Although other sociological perspectives provide exceptional insight about internal mechanisms of change (e.g., religion, tolerance, gross domestic product, ethnic fractionalization, elites, legislative system), few theorize about external factors, 22 let alone external, normative ones. While some examine how 8 of 16 -KIM democratic citizenship norms (e.g., voter participation, political engagement, civic duty) manifest within individuals' beliefs and behaviors cross-nationally, current explanations are internal (e.g., cultural context, gender, age) (Bolzendahl & Coffé, 2017;Chang, 2016;Coffé & Bolzendahl, 2010;Hooghe & Oser, 2015). Scholars interested in examining the external determinants of citizenship norms could evaluate their diffusion using institutionalism, thus melding these related but currently distinct normative approaches.…”