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Partisanship skews public perception, academics say

Partisan interest is the major driving force behind the Taiwanese public’s judgment on government performance, rather than objective assessment, an academic said in Taipei at a conference on democracy in Asia on Friday

“Because of cultural elements in Taiwan, the perceived quality of governance is heavily affected by partisanship,” said Huang Min-hua (黃旻華), assistant professor at National Taiwan University’s Department of Political Science.

Huang was one of more than 30 academics who participated in the event, called “An Asian Barometer Conference on the State of Democratic Governance in Asia,” to discuss democratic development in the region.

‘POLARIZATION’

Huang said his research had shown that because of “cognitive polarization” people often subjectively appraise the overall performance of the government and the fairness of the system based on their political preferences, rather than from an objective point of view.

“Cognitive polarization is dangerous because people only see what they choose to see and hear what they choose to hear,” he said, using as an example the reflex of defeated political camps and their supporters to criticize the neutrality of the country’s judicial system, while the winner praises its judicial independence.

SOUTH KOREA

Meanwhile, in South Korea most people are skeptical about the effectiveness of the law when it comes to punishing the rich and the powerful, said Park Chong-min, professor at Korea University’s Department of Public Administration.

“Korean democracy is an electoral democracy, but still lacks some elements of liberal democracy,” said Park, warning that without effective institutions of accountability, South Korea could degenerate into a “delegative” or an illiberal populist democracy.

Japanese professor Mashiro Yamada from Kwansei-Gakuin University said that in spite of Japan’s democratization after World War II, the public’s evaluation of governmental performance was still very “pessimistic.”

The citizens have “low senses of personal efficacy, low expectations of their government, do not participate much in politics and are pessimistic about freedom,” the professor said.
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