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The Tension Between Parochial and General Interests Is a Central Theme in Democratic Theory and Practice

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The Tension Between Parochial and General Interests Is a Central Theme in Democratic Theory and Practice UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Meshing motivations : individual and collective action in the Taiwanese legislature Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8jm7w8db Author Batto, Nathan Frank Publication Date 2006 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Meshing Motivations: Individual and Collective Action in the Taiwanese Legislature A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirement for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Nathan Frank Batto Committee in charge: Professor Gary W. Cox, Chair Professor Mathew D. McCubbins Professor Richard Madsen Professor Susan Shirk Professor Matthew S. Shugart 2007 Copyright Nathan Frank Batto, 2007 All rights reserved The Dissertation of Nathan Frank Batto is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm: _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2007 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ………………………………………………………………………….. iii Table of Contents …………………………………………………………..…………… iv List of Tables ………………………………………………………………………..…… v Acknowledgement ………….………………………………………………………….. vii Vita ………………………..…………………………………………………………….. ix Abstract ……………………………….…………………………………………………. x Chapter One: The Tension between Parochial and General Interests …………………… 1 Chapter Two: Multiple Principals ………………………………………………...……. 15 Chapter Three: Committee Membership ………………………………………...…….. 45 Appendix Three: Full Models for Data Presented in Table 3.2 …………….…….. 67 Chapter Four: Stacking Committees and Multiple Referral …………………...………. 74 Chapter Five: Balancing Constituent and Party Interests in Roll Call Votes ……....…. 105 Appendix Five: Imputation of Missing Votes ………………………..……..…….119 Chapter Six: Providing Cover ………………………………………..……………….. 134 Chapter Seven: The Financial Disclosure Law of 1993 ……………………………… 161 Chapter Eight: Conclusion ……………………………………………………………. 191 References: …………………………………………………………………….……… 198 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Major Changes in the Partisan Composition of the Legislative Yuan …..….. 44 Table 3.1: Highest Number of Sessions Spent on any Single Committee for each Legislator ………………………………………………………………...….68 Table 3.2: Logit Models of Membership on Money and Non-Money Committees ….... 69 Table 3.A.1: Logit Model of Vote Concentration and Membership on Money Committees ……………………………………………………………….... 70 Table 3.A.2: Logit Model of Vote Concentration and Membership on Non-Money Committees …………………………………………………………..…….. 71 Table 3.A.3: Logit Model of List Legislators and Membership on Money Committees ………………………………………………………………… 72 Table 3.A.4: Logit Model of List Legislators and Membership on Non-Money Committees ……………………………………………………………...…. 73 Table 4.1: Partisan Balance of Individual Committees ………………………….……. 100 Table 4.2: OLS Regression Model of Vote Concentration and Blue Camp Seat Share on Substantive Committees …………………………………….….. 101 Table 4.3: Blue Camp Control of Committees Reviewing Government Bills ……...….102 Table 4.4: Logit Models of Blue Camp Seat Share and Average Committee Vote Concentration and Multiple Referral ………………………………...…… 103 Table 4.5: Green Camp Control of Committees Reviewing Government Bills …...…. 104 Table 5.1: Support for and Defection from the Party Line …………………………… 130 Table 5.2: Extended Beta Binomial Model: List and District Legislators ……….…… 132 v Table 5.A1: Probit Model of Attendance ……………………………...……………… 133 Table 6.1: Extended Beta Binomial Model: Who Calls for the Vote? …...…………… 159 Table 6.2: Extended Beta Binomial Model: Procedural Votes ……………...………… 160 Table 7.1: Extended Beta Binomial Model of Party Loyalty Among KMT Legislators ………………………………………………………………… 190 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT A project like this is never the accomplishment of only one person; my list of debts is long and the debts incurred are not small. The last time I wrote acknowledgments, for my Masters Thesis at National Chengchi University in Taipei, they stretched three pages, single-spaced. In many ways, this is merely an updating of that document, for this dissertation could not have been completed without the foundation built during those years in Taiwan. I will refrain from reprinting that entire list once again. Instead I will merely thank the two most important people: I-chou Liu, who was my formal thesis advisor, and Yung-tai Hung, who was my advisor in practically every other respect. Six years in La Jolla brought with them a whole new batch of debts. These start with my dissertation advisor, Gary Cox. Gary has always been supportive and generous with his time and advice. I also thank the other members of the UCSD faculty, especially Susan Shirk, Matthew Shugart, Mat McCubbins, and Dick Madsen, who served on my dissertation committee. I should also not fail to mention Sam Popkin, who supported me my first summer in grad school and did much to shape my thinking. When I was considering which grad school to attend, I was told that the faculty would be important but that my education would be most affected by the other graduate students. In many respects, this has been true. I have continually been challenged and stimulated by my colleagues in the graduate wings of the department. In particular, Henry Kim and I have spent innumerable nights in our offices discussing readings, crackpot theories, theology, baseball, history, and all sorts of other wacky topics. Some vii of them have even proven to eventually be useful for our careers. In a quite different vein, I am grateful to all the members of the Fudds softball team, even if most are better political scientists than fielders. I spent the 2003-2004 academic year in Taiwan. For support during this year, I thank Yun-han Chu, Yu-tzung Chang, and everyone else at the East Asia Barometer project and in the Department of Political Science, National Taiwan University. I also thank all my colleagues at the Election Study Center, National Chengchi University as well as all the members of the Snow Cows baseball/softball team. I have received funding from two sources. The Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange awarded me a doctoral fellowship which supported me for a year of graduate school. I am extremely grateful for their support. In addition, I would like to acknowledge a travel grant from the Rohr Chair in Pacific International Relations. I must thank my family for years of support. After all these long years, I have finally started earning a decent paycheck. Just think how much more money I would have made by now if I had dropped out of school at age eighteen and started working full-time! Finally, I thank Fu-yi Yang and dedicate this dissertation to her as a metaphor of our trials. This dissertation has been the cause of endless frustration and considerable delight; it is deeply flawed in some respects but has important insights in others; it is the result of both compromise and stubbornness; even with the formal completion of the dissertation, its content will continue to evolve in other works. For all the pain, I would gladly sign up for the whole experience again. viii VITA 1992 Bachelor of Arts, Dartmouth College 1999 Master of Arts, National Chengchi University (Taipei, Taiwan) 2003-2004 Visiting Scholar, National Taiwan University 2006 Assistant Professor, University of the Pacific 2007 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS “Electoral Strategy, Committee Membership, and Rent-Seeking in the Taiwanese Legislature, 1992 – 2001.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 30,1 (2005): 43-62. “Geographical Voting Bases and the Stability of Candidates’ Voter Coalitions, 1989 – 1998.” Xuanju Yanjiu (Journal of Electoral Studies) 8,1 (2001): 211-247. ix ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Meshing Motivations: Individual and Collective Action in the Taiwanese Legislature by Nathan Frank Batto Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, San Diego, 2007 Professor Gary W. Cox, Chair My dissertation explores the tension between parochial and general interests. I argue that general interests attempt to accommodate, or mesh with, parochial interests rather than quash or clash directly with them. I illustrate this logic with evidence from the Taiwanese legislature. The tension between parochial and general interests is a central theme in democratic theory and practice. Systems in which parochial interests dominate are often unworkable because they are often unable to make coherent policy choices and they have difficulty managing common pool resources that belong to the entire nation. x Alternatively, when parochial interests are powerless to check the dominant general interest, the country is vulnerable to kings run amok. My dissertation explores the tension between parochial and general interests in the Taiwanese legislature. The goal is both theoretical, to offer a general picture of this tension, and specific, to bring Taiwan into the ambit of comparative legislative studies. I argue that those pursuing general interests know that parochial interests exist and are powerful. Whenever possible, general interests seek to avoid direct conflict with parochial interests. Instead, they prefer to mesh, incorporating the parochial interests into their
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